Teacher
by Loten
Summary: The Immortals Quartet: Wild Magic, written from Numair's perspective. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

_**Edit April 2010: **FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to)._

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_**Author's Note: **__As the summary says, this is Wild Magic from Numair's point of view. Like many people, I happen to think he's a brilliant character who doesn't get enough screen time (as it were), and you have to admit that a lot of fun stuff happens to him. I will be covering all four of the Immortals books from Numair's point of view eventually. At this moment in time, Wild Magic and Emperor Mage are both complete, and Realms of the Gods is about half-done; I haven't started Wolf-Speaker yet, since it's the one I'm going to struggle most with, but I've just finished re-reading it and I think I know what I'm doing for most of it._

_This first chapter is a little clumsy, but it's quite difficult to write from the point of view of someone who was on drugs at the time! I did want to start with Numair's mission to spy on Sinthya, rather than its aftermath, but TP didn't go into much detail and when I tried to make it up myself I couldn't seem to get it right. This is also going to be a very short chapter, since it seemed to make more sense to stop once he'd shifted back; think of it more as a prologue than an actual chapter. I promise, the writing improves when I have actual dialogue to work with!_

_**Obligatory Disclaimer: **__Not mine. I would hope you already knew that.

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He woke as someone slapped his face, hard. _I've had better mornings,_ he thought dizzily, struggling to focus on the man grinning nastily at him. Slowly, details emerged from the fog that filled his head. This man had the Gift, quite strongly. That wasn't good. He felt nauseous and sleepy, which was worse. Also, he couldn't seem to move; a momentary experiment confirmed that he was chained – and naked, incidentally – which meant a dungeon, since his hobbies weren't that exotic. That was very bad indeed.

A few more memories trickled back to him. _I'm in Sinthya's dungeons._ He remembered now; he'd been on a spying mission, trying to trace rumours that the lord was dealing with Carthak, and he'd been caught – hit with a drug-tipped dart, of all things, as he tried to make a run for it. He had the proof he'd needed, although he couldn't seem to remember the details right now; he'd also learned about these dungeons. No, he really did not want to be here; he had to get away with what he knew. He began struggling in earnest, memories filtering through the haze, remembering the last time he'd been trapped in a dungeon by a sadist. _No. No._

There was laughter, and someone holding his head, fingers painfully tight in his hair. Fingers wrenching his jaws apart, the bitterness of more drugs on his tongue as he fought not to swallow. The dizziness and nausea increased and he tried in vain to remember a spell, any spell at all. He had to get away. There was more laughter, and the voice of Sinthya himself, giving a harsh instruction that he couldn't hear.

Someone took a firm grip on his arm, stretching the limb out, and out further, to the point of discomfort. The hands tightened, then wrenched, and he heard a dull snap as his hand went numb; a moment later the pain hit him. He dimly heard his own voice, a strangled grunt; another snap, more pain, a whimper. A third, and the pain was blinding, and he screamed.

Panic took him. He'd been tortured in a dungeon before; he could not go through it again. _Have to get away. Have to._ The pain had cleared his mind, a little; he could remember some things now. Break the chains? He'd hurt himself, maybe. Someone twisted his broken arm and he screamed again. _Escape._ He had to shapeshift, fly, there was no other way to get away. A small voice at the back of his mind tried to tell him why it was a bad idea, but he was terrified now and started to shift with the strength of desperation.

The chains wrenched agonisingly at his limbs, but the manacles couldn't hold his altered bone structure. The broken arm was extremely bad, but there was no choice. The dizziness suddenly grew worse as his shape settled, and for a moment he realised why he shouldn't have shifted; too many drugs for a small body and a bird's metabolism. Too late. Everything was swallowed in the rush of fear and he took wing.

* * *

The world spun crazily again, the sky flashing strange colours. For a moment he almost thought he was flying under water. The pain was a background pulse now, not important compared to what was chasing him through this nightmare. All he could remember was that these things were hunting him, and that he must not let them catch him, that there were people he had to find. Who they were, why he had to find them and why the monsters were chasing him were details that had long since dissolved in the fizzing mess of his mind. He didn't even know who he was any more.

Flashes of light almost blinded him and he swerved wildly, his hurt wing unable to give the lift he needed and causing him to falter and almost fall. The pursuing wingbeats grew louder, rising to almost a roar, the noise a physical pulse against his body that felt as though it should bruise. Something screamed in a distorted voice; it might have been him, or one of the monsters. How long had he been flying away from them? Years, decades, seconds. _Help me!_ he screamed silently.

Tree branches reached out, long fingers trying to grab him, to hold him for the monsters to eat. _Cage bars._ He saw clear air and open space; it seemed to be filled with sparkling mist, but he flew that way anyway, bursting out into bright overwhelming light that hurt his eyes and made everything spin until he wasn't sure which way he was going.

A shrill whistling sound cut through the air. Was it more monsters? They were right behind him! The whistle made him remember something, a woman training a dog; he knew the sound and tried to look at it. The monsters had turned, they were looking at the whistling as well, they weren't looking at him; he dropped away from the sparkling air that had held him, fell into the clasping fingers of the reeds and saw darkness, dived into its embrace and collapsed.

He huddled in the darkness, shivering, listening to the monsters screaming as they tried to find him. After a while – a few heartbeats, an eternity – there was silence again, blissful, warm silence that wrapped around him; the monsters had gone and there was only the pain that beat through his body with his blood and a lingering fear.

The silence fractured and broke apart; someone was out there, back in the light. He panicked briefly, but the face that stared into his hiding place wasn't that of the monsters. Was she one of the people he had to find? No, he'd never seen her before. Something strange... He stared at her, trying to make sense of it; he saw a human but felt an animal. She felt... safe. Whoever, whatever, she was, a hawk could trust her.

Meaningless noises reached him, the sounds almost visible as solid safety somehow. She reached out and he let her pull him from his hiding place, shivering as he tried to breathe, staring at her. More sounds, one or two seeming familiar and making him think of the woman with the dog again; he wondered who that was. It seemed he should know. Then it wasn't important, because this one was talking about pain, and he trembled as the message reached him; this was going to hurt, but it wasn't like before, this pain was needed and not enjoyed.

It did hurt, and he shrieked once, a sharp note that hurt his ears even though it was his own voice, but then it was done and the reeds clutched his wing and held it. And she was talking again, and they were moving, pushing through the sunlight to... the woman with the dog. He did know her, or thought he did; there was a very faint echo of the safe feeling he got from the first human. _Safe.

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Slow movement through the rest of the day, and his mind had calmed a little, enough that he accepted the horses surrounding him and began to remember a few odd details. They didn't fit anywhere yet, but they would eventually. Darkness fell, which was good because the world had been spinning slowly around him and shimmering oddly, and the dog woman made light ahead of her that tugged at him. He knew that light, it meant something important.

Later, the first one spoke to him again, the one who felt so animal. She mentioned the monsters once and made him shudder, but most of what she said was just noise, and that was bad because he almost understood her – almost – but she wasn't speaking properly to him. Or he wasn't hearing her properly, maybe. It made his head ache, trying to listen.

She was trying to give him something now, holding it out to him. He couldn't tell what it was, but something in him made him turn away from it; he knew he'd be ill if he took it, that it would somehow hurt. Everything hurt. She kept trying, and it seemed to be important, but they couldn't understand one another and he didn't know what she wanted.

Darkness and light had blurred together now and he had lost track of what was going on. Vaguely he recalled that monsters had been after him, and that he needed to go somewhere; he didn't know why the dog woman and the one who felt safe were here now. Something wasn't right any more, he couldn't really see them now and the world around him looked so strange that he was sure he wasn't seeing it properly, but he didn't know what was wrong. There was pain, somewhere, but he couldn't feel that either now. Everything seemed too hot or too cold, and very far away.

Someone else was there now, with the other two. This new person touched him, and he stared at her blankly, then blinked as a haze of purple filled his vision. He knew her, he realised, like the dog woman only more so, and he felt pleased to see her in a way he couldn't define.

* * *

A voice called him, after a while. Everything was very dark now, and further away than before. He wanted to answer the voice just so it would leave him alone, but he couldn't find his own voice; it was lost in the darkness somewhere with him. He was lost. Trapped, in the dark... The voice sounded again, and something stirred in the dark around him; power. He knew how to answer that, strangely. Wavering, he reached...

The darkness broke up, and sudden awareness crashed down on him, memory of who he was and who everyone else was. Friends, and safety. He smiled with relief, was vaguely aware of saying something, then darkness took him once more.

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_Well, there you have it. As I said, it's very short and fairly strange, but I promise it gets better from now on. Please review and let me know what you think. I don't know how often I'll be updating, but I swear it won't be too long before the next part is uploaded._

_**Loten.**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Edit April 2010: **FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to)._

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_Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I'm really pleased so many people like it. I'll try not to disappoint you all._

_Incidentally, I don't have a beta. If you spot any glaring mistakes, please let me know. I missed out the conversation between Onua and Daine making fun of Numair; to be honest, there was nothing to add, they pretty much said it all! Enjoy.

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Time passed. Numair slept, mostly, recovering from the abuse his body and mind had suffered recently. There was healing, too, and severe scolding from both Alanna and Onua that he endured meekly while trying not to smile. A spidren attack, too, that he was disappointed to have missed; not that he could have done anything anyway, as Alanna pointed out.

Eventually he was deemed fit to get up; just in time to say goodbye, as it turned out, as Alanna and the Own had work to do elsewhere with the information he had gathered about Sinthya. He would make his own way back to Corus, with Onua and the ponies, and this girl Daine; he was looking forward to meeting her, curious to see anyone who so quickly earned his friends' approval, and he wanted to puzzle out his confused memories of her.

Alanna had kindly altered the borrowed clothing, so at least it fit. He dressed slowly, still a little shaky, and even made a credible attempt at shaving before leaving the tent and blinking in the bright light outside. He remembered how everything had spun and blurred, before, and smiled wryly to himself; at least Alanna's healing had shifted the last of the drugs from his system, leaving him with what felt like a hangover for a few hours before it had cleared.

Numair padded slowly over to where the two were sitting mending tack, oddly self-conscious; he never liked meeting new people, and they had met under very strange circumstances indeed. Onua smiled to see him up, asking how he'd managed to get hold of boots the right size and offering him tea in the same breath; he couldn't help smiling at his friend.

Sipping tea slowly, he talked with Onua for a few moments, glancing at Daine from the corner of his eye; she seemed as shy as he was, which almost made him laugh at himself. Setting the tea down, he moved forward to help her with the leather she was mending; she thanked him so softly he barely heard her, and blushed as well. Odd that she should be so nervous of him... but then, she _had_ thought him a different species until a couple of days ago. "You look different," he told her impulsively; she looked up sharply, revealing bright grey-blue eyes.

"What?"

He smiled. "You were a _lot_ bigger." It made her grin, which had been the point; besides, if she couldn't tolerate his feeble jokes, it would be a long trip to Corus. She seemed to relax a little.

"Seems to me_ you _was a bit smaller, now I think of it," she answered quietly, the Gallan accent stronger than he had expected, and he smiled as he handed the strap back to her and moved to sit back on the log near Onua.

"I'd be dead if it weren't for you," he commented, watching her thoughtfully, remembering the vague, confused impressions he had had of her. "You're called Daine?" She nodded, and he picked up his tea once more. "I'm glad to meet you, Daine. I'm Numair Salmalín."

"I thought it was Arram."

He glanced at Onua, who nodded fractionally; she trusted Daine. That was good enough for him, although it made him a little uneasy; he looked back at the girl. "Arram's my boyhood name. I go by Numair now."

She looked a little puzzled, but took the hint. "The honour's mine, Master Numair." After a moment, curiosity overcame shyness. "Why didn't you change back?"

"I was stuck," he admitted ruefully, smiling wryly.

"_Stuck?"_

He nodded, noticing Onua listening as well. "When Sinthya caught me, his mage fed me drugs. I panicked, and shape-shifted. I didn't remember I was full of all the drugs it takes to knock out somebody my size."

"You're lucky they didn't kill you," Onua told him tartly; not for the first time, either.

"You're right," he agreed, also not for the first time. "By the time you found me, I couldn't tell ground from air any more," he added, looking back at Daine. "The food you offered? I didn't know it was food. Not that I was able to keep anything down." Onua had taken an almost perverse delight in telling him that he'd thrown up repeatedly, amongst other things. He sipped his tea. "It'll be a long time before I take hawk shape again."

"_That's_ why you had funny eyes," Daine breathed. "And that's why you made me dizzy."

"I wanted to ask you about that," Numair said slowly, thinking aloud. "Onua says you got sick, disorientated. I can't understand _how._ She says you don't have the Gift – "

"Odd's bobs!" she snapped, startling him with the sudden anger in her voice. "I don't see why this _Gift _is so grand. It comes and goes. You can't do too much at once, and you need all kinds of rules. It's more trouble than it's worth." She stood abruptly. "But whenever I turn 'round, somebody asks if I have it. I'm good with animals – isn't that enough?" He was further disturbed to see that she was crying as she stormed off, and looked blankly at Onua in some confusion.

"What did I say?" he asked, bewildered.

His friend sighed and put down the tack she had been mending. "Her mother was a hedgewitch. She and Daine's grandfather were killed by raiders in January. She wanted Daine to have the Gift, not just whatever she has with animals. Fool woman kept testing her, as if she thought the girl would develop it overnight. I'd better go after her."

He winced. "No – when she cools off, I'll go." Otherwise there would be no chance of making friends. "You and Alanna were right," he continued. "She has real power. Not the Gift, though." Absently he picked up a couple of twigs, tapping one against the other, thinking. "It's wild magic, pure and simple. She's brimming with it. I've never seen a human with so much." She'd glowed when he'd first seen her, burning with inner fire.

"You felt it, then?"

He smiled. "I felt it when I was a bird, half-crazy and dying." Not that he'd realised what it was he was feeling at the time. Just a vague sense of... kinship, almost, and the knowledge that this girl would never harm an animal.

Onua sighed, the familiar half-exasperated sound he often heard from his friends. "Be careful with her, Arram," she warned him. "She's hurting."

"I will," he promised; he'd been able to see that for himself, and his words hadn't helped even if he hadn't meant any harm. He stood up, groaning at the stiffness in his muscles, and looked down at her. "Use Numair, will you? I know you trust Daine, but there's no telling who else might overhear. I still have enemies in Carthak who'd like to know where I am."

She made a face at him. "You're right – Numair."

He grinned despite himself. "Come on – what great sorcerer has a name like Arram Draper?" he asked mockingly. "I have to have a name to fit my calling, don't you think?" That was only a small part of the reason for the name change, of course, but back in his stupid days – well, more stupid than he was now, at least – it had been something he'd seriously considered.

"All mages are Players at heart, I swear," she answered. "Can't do magic unless you have all kinds of robes and props and a big audience to cheer you." And this from a woman with the Gift herself. Numair smiled wryly at her and wandered into the trees after Daine.

* * *

The girl was lying on the ground at eye level with a woodchuck, apparently lost in the animal's chatter. He watched, trying to judge how best to approach this; she burned with wild magic, but from what he'd been able to piece together she had no idea what it was. Not many people did, admittedly, but it seemed odd that she could be so powerful and not even realise that it was magic at all. The woodchuck trotted off, and he walked forward slowly. "He seemed to have a lot to say."

Daine answered absently, obviously not paying attention. "Oh, it's the usual spring talk. Freshening up the burrow, getting nice-smelling leaves. I told him where to find some wild mint." She stopped talking abruptly, and he saw her blush. "Master Numair, I – "

He couldn't help but smile. "No offense taken – _if_ you stop calling me 'Master'. If I'm to help with the ponies the rest of the way, we may as well use first names."

She relaxed a little. "Is Onua mad at me? For losing my temper?"

He shook his head, about to say that of course she wasn't; the motion caused the tie that held his hair back to fall, and he cursed softly, half-laughing. "Gods bless it..."

It served him right for having long hair, really. He generally lost the hair tie at least once a day. Shaking his head wryly, he began searching the leaf litter, and Daine came to help him, answering his smile with one of her own. Eventually, they found it, and the last edge of nervous tension between them had dissolved as they turned to walk back to camp.

"It's easier if you wet it before using it on your hair," she told him. "When it dries, then it shrinks."

"Good advice. Your hair gives you trouble?" It was curlier than his own, a rarity in this part of the world.

"Oh, Goddess, my hair's so dratted thick I don't even bother with ties," she answered, then giggled, the first time he'd heard her laugh. "This is a very strange conversation we're having."

She'd have to get used to that if she spent any time with him. Numair grinned at her. "Boys worry just as much about their looks as girls do," he confided. "We only hide it better."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously," he assured her, trying not to laugh. This had to be the strangest way he'd ever made friends with someone. "You should see the lotions I put on my hair to get it to behave."

* * *

Two days later, morning found him feeling much more like himself; his arm was a little stiff still, but it no longer hurt, and his mind was clear. Just as well, really; it was a very long walk back to Corus, and he was definitely too tall to ride one of the ponies. To his amusement, not only was Onua watching him constantly but so was Daine; checking her patient was an ingrained habit, he suspected, no matter what shape he was in.

The day drifted past in simple conversation; it was something of a relief to just talk for a while without needing to think about state secrets or potential disasters. Strangely, Daine was easy to talk to, once she forgot to be shy; he managed to make her laugh a few times, and in the afternoon dug some pebbles from the edge of the path to juggle with – showing off, really, although he wasn't sure why. He'd never made friends with someone so easily before. Onua trusted her, and that was a large part of it, but Numair was still surprised to realise late in the day that he trusted her as well; there was something about her, a kind of strength he liked, and shadows of old pain in her eyes that his stupid jokes didn't quite remove.

He was feeling better physically too, some of his reserves returning to him, enough so that when they made camp and he noticed Daine having problems with the fire he wandered over to help.

"How does it go?" he asked, watching the tiny sparks on the wood flare and die, hearing the irritation in her voice as she responded.

"Gods bless it!"

"What's the matter?"

"Oh, they must've had rain here yesterday. Everything's damp."

"Sit back," he warned her, not sure of his control while he was this weak; she did as he asked and he looked at the pile of wood, concentrating briefly, rewarded with fire blossoming in the pile of tinder. Startled, she scrambled to add wood before it went out again.

"But you didn't point, or make circles, or chant anything – " she said, confused.

Numair shrugged. "Some people need those things. I don't," he replied matter-of-factly, wondering what her reaction would be. His strength scared people, sometimes, the ones who knew enough about the Gift to realise just how unusual it was. Her gasp seemed more mocking than anything else, though.

"Well, excuse me for breathing!"

It made him laugh, which brought a grin to her face. "What – did they have to enact fire-making rituals before anything would burn, where you came from?" he asked teasingly.

Just like that, the laughter left her face, her expression closing down, and he realised he'd said something wrong again. "Things burned easy back home," she said flatly, her voice as closed as her eyes. "_Real_ easy." Standing, she walked away; he watched her for a moment, wondering just what had happened to her, when sudden pain flared in his arm and made him yelp. Her pony had bitten him, quite hard. Turning his head, he glared at the mare.

"Stop that, or I'll light a fire under your tail," he threatened, reasonably certain that she would understand him; she seemed to understand everything said to her that he'd seen. Cloud's teeth dug in harder for a moment, making him wince – she _would_ have to pick the arm that had been broken and was still healing – before she let go and moved a step away, suddenly looking innocent.

Looking away from the pony, he saw Onua nearby, grooming one of the other animals. "It was going so well," his friend said softly, her tone letting him know that she wasn't sure what he'd said wrong this time. "She _laughed._"

He rubbed his arm, rolling up his sleeve to see that the pony had broken the skin; not much comfort to know that she could have rebroken the bone but had chosen not to. It wasn't as if he'd said something wrong deliberately, after all. Giving the grey a final glare, he looked back at Onua. "She'll laugh again." So, fire had been involved somehow? He'd remember that next time.

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_Please keep reviewing. It really does mean a lot to me to see that people like my writing. And if you don't like it, I need to know that, too._

_**Loten.**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Edit April 2010: **FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to)._

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_Thanks again to everyone who reviewed. This chapter is longer; I'm splitting it wherever I think makes sense to stop.

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_That night and the following day passed quietly. Numair could see that Daine was still a little upset, and knew enough to let it well alone and pretend nothing had happened. If she hadn't told Onua the story yet, she certainly wasn't going to tell him, and that was all right because there were many things he had no intention of telling her either. He thought they were going to be friends eventually, but right now it was best for both of them to keep their own secrets.

Evening meant meditation again, since last night Onua had admitted to getting out of the habit of meditating every night. Truthfully, so had he until recently, which was a bad idea for him since it was important that he be able to concentrate and keep control of himself. To his mild surprise, Daine seemed interested in learning; certainly no harm in that, and it might well help her later if she chose to really begin learning her own magic. He said nothing about that, although later as they sat quietly he opened his eyes and looked at her aura; she blazed brighter than anyone he'd ever seen, strongly enough that she would definitely need training, and soon. Not yet, though; she didn't quite trust him yet, and knew nothing of the magic she possessed.

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The following day they were overtaken on the road by the Own. He'd felt Alanna approaching from some distance away, her anger was so strong, and knew it was bad news even before he saw her face; she wore the expression that warned everyone who knew her to step very quietly and watch what they said. The Lioness' temper was the stuff of legends at times.

"He's gone," Alanna told them, looking mostly at him, and he winced at the news. "From the looks of it, he fled the minute he knew you were safe. Curse him! Those dungeons of his – "

"I know," he interrupted in a whisper, cutting her off. He'd been there. He knew. Feeling suddenly tired, he looked away; this mess was at least partly his fault. He should have been more careful. He listened to the rest of the conversation with half an ear; the Stormwings had helped Sinthya escape, and were apparently far more than simply monsters. Wonderful news. No doubt he would be researching them for weeks once they reached the palace again.

The Own left them behind, and the three humans and herd of ponies increased their pace; Numair needed to get to Corus quickly to report to Jon and find out what he was doing next, and Onua was working to her own deadline that his arrival had delayed.

* * *

Four days later they finally arrived back in Corus, by which time he was feeling tired and stressed once more, going over his report in his mind and trying to anticipate what questions Jon was likely to ask; mostly questions he had no answers for. He was touched to see that Daine was upset when they separated; she'd miss him, it seemed, even if he did seem to have a knack for saying the wrong thing. They'd become friends at some point on the trip here. No matter; he'd certainly see her again soon, and told her so without saying why, before saying goodbye to the pair of them and heading for the palace.

Numair wasn't sure what woke him. Possibly a bad dream; he didn't remember what he'd been dreaming about. Maybe something had caught his senses and woken him; maybe he'd simply heard the uproar from the grounds. However it had happened, it had, and he raced through the darkened corridors of the palace, nearly killing himself leaping blindly down the stairs to the ground floor and out of a side door, running across the grass in the darkness towards the sounds of screaming horses and baying dogs – and above that, the by now unpleasantly familiar sounds of Stormwings. Well, he wasn't drugged this time!

The animal sounds should have tipped him off, but he didn't realise until he was close enough to see clearly that Daine was involved. The unpleasant shock cleared his mind and focused him; the first Stormwing died explosively and he was relieved to discover that his Gift was returning rapidly. He wasn't at full strength yet, but he didn't need to be; others had heard the alarm. And the animals were fighting, too; even as his magic tracked more Stormwings, he watched the horses and dogs defending the girl crouched in their midst, grinning despite himself at the sight of the unarmed thirteen year old throwing rocks at the immortals and yelling defiance.

He had to focus; his strength was returning, but he hadn't been expecting a fight so soon, and there were a lot of Stormwings. Turning away, he paid more attention to the monsters, angry now that they had hounded him and Daine right to his home, worried that they'd dared attack right in the heart of the palace. Sarge and Onua had both appeared now, their respective quarters close to the horse meadow; a moment later he felt a familiar surge and the purple fire of Alanna's magic joined the fight.

Thunder all but deafened him, setting the animals to screaming, and he knew who had caused it even before the blue fire appeared. "Was that really necessary, Jon?" he shouted over the noise, turning to move closer to the other two mages, grinning wryly at the king before wearily hurling fire at another Stormwing. If Jon replied, he didn't hear it, the spell draining most of what he had left; luckily the remaining immortals elected to give up and fled the field.

Exhausted, shivering now the adrenaline began to wear off – he wasn't exactly dressed for this – he started wearily down the rise towards Daine, deciding to let Jon and Alanna look at Stormwing corpses. He'd seen as much as he cared to of these particular monsters for a while; even the fact that they could use magic failed to draw him. Reaching her, he smiled tiredly, leaning against the tree in the middle of the field. "I said I'd see you again."

She grinned, looking shaken but unhurt. "You timed it perfect."

* * *

He was late to the meeting the next evening; the fight had drained him, so he'd slept late, and once he'd woken he'd had work to do trying to make sense of what was happening to the world. He'd also forgotten to eat, and reached for the plate of cakes before he'd even sat down, taking a bite as he listened to Jon explaining to Daine what little they knew – not much. He was vaguely amused to see the half-stunned expression on her face; Jon tended to have that effect on women of all ages. Swallowing his mouthful, he listened to the talk.

"Our neighbours – Galla, Scanra, Tusaine – report unicorns, giant birds, even winged people as small as wrens. We are plagued by monsters, ogres and trolls." Jon's fingers drummed restlessly on the table. "It's interesting that a weak mage like Sinthya could send rare creatures like Stormwings after you," the king added to Numair. "Where did he get such power? As far as we know, he had only one secret worth protecting; he was dealing with Carthak."

"Carthak's another country?" Daine asked uncertainly.

"Across the Inland Sea," Numair replied as neutrally as he could. "They're desperate. Their crops failed two years in a row – not enough rain, and tornadoes that ripped up the fields. There were food riots in the capital last winter. The emperor needs good farmland, and we're the closest target."

Jon joined in. "Carthak has the university, its school for mages, and its library – the same library used by the mages who sealed the Divine Realms." The king looked at Numair. "I think the Carthaki mages found those spells."

He had come to the same conclusion. Appetite gone, he stared down at the remains of the cake he held, picking it apart and rolling the pieces into a ball. He'd looked for those spells himself when he was at the university, out of simple curiosity. If he'd stayed in Carthak, maybe he would have been one of the mages now tearing holes between realms and unleashing monsters on the northern countries. He changed the subject. "_And_ spells to compel immortals to obey humans. How else could Sinthya get Stormwings to chase me?"

Jon turned back to Daine. "We have nothing like those spells. Sinthya's papers vanished. We're searching our own libraries, but it might take months. In the meantime, the warnings foretellers give us aren't enough. If we could send those with your ability to sense immortals to our villages and towns, we could better protect our people. If we can find your father – "

That jolted Numair out of his brooding. Jon hadn't mentioned this idea to him. Turning, he looked at Daine; she looked miserable, shaking her head, and he frowned in concern.

"Daine?" The gentle voice came from Onua. Daine looked down.

"I don't know who he is," the girl said in a small voice, staring at the table. "It's in my name. Sarrasri – Sarra's daughter. Only _bastards_ are named for their mothers." That one word held a great deal of anger and pain, and he wanted to say something comforting, but he could tell she didn't want sympathy right now.

"Why don't you know?" Jon asked, apparently unwilling to let the subject drop. Well, it might prove to be important, Numair supposed; it was a shame that it was painful for her, though.

She kept her eyes fixed on the table. "Ma never told me. She never told anybody. She kept saying 'someday, someday'."

"Do you know anything?" Onua asked, resting a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"It was Beltane." That said it all, really, but Daine seemed determined to get the whole story out – such as it was – now it had started. "They light fires, and couples jump over the embers when they burn down."

"We do the same thing," Jon remarked, and Daine stared at him.

"_You_ never jumped over no embers."

The room erupted into laughter, which Numair joined; she had no idea what sort of place she was living in now. He remembered his own first few weeks at court; most of them had been spent in a state of complete and utter bewilderment. She blushed and looked away.

"The ruler takes part in all great feasts, to show respect for the gods," Jon told her gravely, his eyes dancing. "Thayet and I do it every year."

"I didn't mean – I wasn't trying to be – disrespectful – " she stammered. Jon patted her knee.

"I didn't think you were. Go on."

After a moment she resumed her story. "Ma wasn't sweet on anybody, so she went walking in the woods alone. She met someone. I used to think it was a man that was already married, but when I asked last year, she said no. And I don't look like anyone from Snowsdale. Most of 'em are blond and blue-eyed, being's we're so near Scanra and all."

Jon sat back with a sigh, looking disappointed. "Well, it was an idea."

"I'll help if I can," Daine said, a little unexpectedly given how painful this discussion had obviously been. "I just don't know what I could do. And the warnings aren't that, exactly. I know something wrong's coming, but I knew that much about the rabid bear."

That made everyone in the room blink. "A rabid _bear_?" Jon asked in fascinated horror. "Mithros – that's not something I'd ever want to see!"

She smiled a little. "I didn't want to see him either, sir. I just got to."

Numair considered what she'd said. "Did you get the identical sensation from the bear as you got with the Stormwings or the spidrens?" he asked.

"Oh, no. It was different. Bad, but in a brown kind of way."

"In a _what_?" Onua asked, sounding confused.

"Well, animals – I think of 'em in colours, sometimes." She tapped her head. "To me, bears feel brown, only this one had red and black lights. Very sick, he was. I get the monsters as colours too, but they're gold with black and green lights in them. I never felt any real creature as gold."

He felt a surge of satisfaction at being proved right, and looked at Jon triumphantly. "I _told_ you she has magic." The instant the words left him he realised it had been the wrong thing to say, and wasn't terribly surprised when Daine stood up abruptly.

"No! Didn't Ma test me and test me? Don't you think I'd've grabbed at magic, if I had it, just to please Ma?"

"Easy, little one," Jon said, taking her arm and easing her back into her chair, while Onua kicked Numair under the table. He hadn't needed the rebuke, really. "Numair believes – and I agree – you have magic. You may have no Gift, but there are other magics, 'wild magics'. The Bazhir tribes use one kind to unite their people. The Doi read the future with another. There are creatures we call 'elementals', whose very nature is composed of wild magic."

Daine seemed to have calmed down a little. She frowned, thinking. "Miri told me the sea people know about it. Some of them use it to talk to fish and dolphins."

Jon nodded. "Exactly. From what your friends say, your wild magic gives you a bond with animals. Your mother might not have recognised it. Only a few people know it even exists." As Numair knew only too well. He'd spent a long time in fruitless arguments on the subject.

Daine's frown deepened. "Can't you see it on someone, like them with the Gift can see it on other folk that have it?"

Numair felt it was time to rejoin the conversation. "I can. And you do." She stared at him.

"He's perhaps the only living expert on wild magic," Jon said helpfully.

Daine scowled. "You never mentioned this on the road."

He smiled, part apology and part amusement; she would have run if he had. "If you were trying to get a deer to come to you, would you make any sudden noises?" he asked, gently teasing.

Her scowl deepened. "That's different. I'm no deer."

Jon broke the mood by reaching to take the girl's hands. "Will you let Numair help you study wild magic?" the king asked. "It may help expand your awareness of the immortals, for one thing," he added by way of incentive.

She didn't look convinced; Onua joined in the persuasion. "Wouldn't it be easier to tell creatures to obey you? All the way here you coaxed the ponies to mind you. You're dominant – you proved that on the stallion, the day you and I met. Why prove it to each pony in the herd, if you could do it just once and never again?"

That didn't seem to have done it either. She was scared, and they were making her magic seem a frightening thing. Numair's mind raced, piecing together what he knew about her and what he knew of what wild magic could do, and suddenly he had it. "Daine," he said softly, and waited until she looked at him. "I can teach you to heal."

The look on her face told him that he'd guessed right. An almost painful hope sparked in her eyes as she looked at him, and her voice was strained as she answered. "Animals? You mean – like Ma did humans? But how do you know if I can?" He could hear in her voice that she was afraid he was wrong, that this dream too would be taken away; it was a depressing tone from someone as young as she was. None of those he had taught wild magic had been strong enough to heal with it, but she was so much more powerful that there was no doubt in his mind that she could learn – especially with how desperately she wanted it.

Onua answered before he could. "Because I saw you do it once. At the marsh, after the fight. You were holding a bird, and you fainted, remember?" Daine nodded, and so did he; Onua had already told him about it. "I was looking right at an owl with his head cut almost off. The wound healed; he flew away. So did a lot of birds that shouldn't have been able to fly. I think it happened because their need just _pulled_ the healing out of you." He almost smiled; this from Onua, who stubbornly insisted that she was no scholar? As far as it went, she was probably right, though. Now she nodded to him. "He can teach you to heal of your own will, without burning yourself up so you faint."

Ironic, considering he couldn't heal with his own magic. It certainly wasn't lack of knowledge; he simply had no affinity for healing magic, not to mention that he was too powerful to do so safely – he didn't want to know what his Gift might do to someone who was injured or sick. But wild magic worked differently; that, he could teach her. If she was willing to try. Now he turned and looked back at Daine patiently, watching the play of emotions over her face; fear, mainly, and sorrow that he didn't fully understand, and that desperate hope that almost hurt to see. She looked away from him in the end, as if seeing his understanding was too much, and looked back at Jonathan.

"I still think it sounds crazy, but I'll try."

Jon squeezed her hands. "You will?"

She nodded, looking a little overwhelmed, then paused. "Oh, wait, I hired on with Onua for the summer."

"That isn't a problem," Numair said quickly. "The trainees will be going to Pirate's Swoop. I live near there. Why don't I just go along?" Jon frowned, and he spoke again before the king could say no. "Hag's bones, Jon, there's nothing I can do here right now that you don't have a hundred other mages doing already." Inspiration struck, and he added, "If I work with Daine, maybe I can devise a spell to warn people that immortals are coming." He doubted it, but Jon didn't have to know that.

The king made a face, obviously not fooled. That was annoying; he was usually better at lying. "You just say that so I'll let you go."

Onua added her support to Numair. "You have too many mages eating their heads off around here as it is. It's not as if you can't contact him if something comes up." He smiled at his friend and looked back at Jon hopefully.

"Whose side are you on?" Jon's tone said clearly that he knew he was outmatched, and a moment later he sighed in defeat, looking back at Daine and letting go of her hands. "Thank you." He stood. "Onua, Numair, keep me posted?" They nodded. "I'd best go then. I have to dance with the Carthaki ambassador's wife."

He grinned at the thought. "Wear iron shoes, Your Majesty," he advised, only half joking.

"Excuse me – Your Majesty?" Daine said hesitantly, drawing everyone's attention back to her.

"Yes, my dear?"

That made her blush. "I'm sorry I can't help more. With the sensing, and my da, and all."

Jon smiled at her. "If I've learned anything as a king, it's been I never know when someone will be able to help me. I have a feeling you'll be most welcome in this realm, Veralidaine Sarrasri." _Veralidaine? Ouch_. No wonder she used the shortened form. Numair watched in some amusement as she stared after Jon as he left, looking poleaxed, and Onua patted her back.

"He has this effect on most of us, if it helps."

Trying not to laugh, he claimed the last cake on the plate and stood up. "No time like the present to begin. Daine, will you get Cloud, please? We'll meet you by the stables."

* * *

He enlisted Onua's help; the K'mir was curious to see what someone with real wild magic could do, since her own was barely there. They went slowly down to the meadow, giving Daine a little time to sort her mind out and adjust to what she had been told, and giving him time to think about what they could reasonably try first and start planning lessons.

"Daine?" he called softly as they drew nearer. "Good, you have her. If you can persuade her to come with me, I'd like to check your range with an animal you know well."

Both girl and pony looked suspicious. "What do you mean, my 'range'?" she asked warily.

"I've observed that when you say you 'hear' an animal, you actually mean hearing in your mind – not with your ears. I want to see how far I can walk with Cloud before you stop hearing her."

She thought about it. "But how will you know?" she asked reasonably. "Should I have her tell you when we lose touch or something?"

"No!" Onua said hastily, laughing. "Daine, knowing Cloud, she'd do it by kicking him. Numair will do a speech spell with me. You and I will sit here, and you tell me what you hear from Cloud, and when you stop hearing her."

"_If_ Cloud will do it," he added; the pony didn't seem to like anyone very much, and he wasn't sure she'd forgiven him yet for upsetting Daine on the road.

"Of course she will," Daine answered, before glancing at the pony, who stared into the distance as if totally unaware of anything that was being said. Finally the mare turned and trotted off along the fence, and Daine grinned. "I think you're to follow her."

Numair sighed and trotted off after the pony, beginning to wonder just what he had let himself in for. "Only one of us can lead here, and that has to be me," he informed the mare as he drew alongside, earning himself an unimpressed snort. It took a few moments for him to set up the spell on the move, finding a pace that matched the pony's stride at the same time and choosing a route that would take them out from where Daine and Onua sat in an almost straight line.

The wolves howling in the distance were a surprise; he'd heard them before on the road, but never so close to a human settlement as large as Corus. Cloud's ears twitched, but oddly the pony seemed totally unafraid. That was curious, but he didn't have much time to think about it, since a moment later Onua's voice came from the sparkling fire in his hand, calling Daine repeatedly.

"Onua? What's wrong?" he asked sharply, stopping; Cloud stopped as well, turning to look at him. When there was no reply, he stared back towards the horse meadow. "Onua?"

"Wait a moment," her voice replied softly, and he frowned, left standing in the dark wondering what had happened. Cloud whickered uneasily, shifting her weight. After what seemed a long time his friend's voice spoke again. "I don't think this is a good idea. She's tired and I think something upset her."

"All right," he answered, breaking the spell and looking back at Cloud. "Come on, then," he told the pony. "I'll open the gate for you." Following the pony back through the night, he studied Daine's face as they drew near enough to see; she did look upset.

"Are you all right?" he asked softly, resting a hand on her shoulder for a moment. "I should have remembered you might be tired after this morning," he added apologetically. "I get carried away sometimes. I forget that not everyone has my academic enthusiasm."

She hesitated, and for a moment seemed about to say something when they were interrupted by the arrival of a man with a crossbow and two wolfhounds, or dogs he assumed were wolfhounds. After they had left and headed back towards her room, she didn't seem to want to talk, and he wished her goodnight quietly before climbing the hill back to the palace, lost in thought.

* * *

_I'm trying to space out my updates so I have time to finish Wolf-Speaker; that way you won't have to wait too long between books. It's going slowly at the moment – of the four, it's always been my least favourite – but once the real action starts I'm more confident about what I'm doing, so it shouldn't be too long._

_As always, please review and tell me what you think._

_**Loten.**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Edit April 2010: **FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to)._

* * *

_It's great to see my reviewers are still with me. I'm spoiling you all with another long-ish update. I hope you appreciate it. It's 'fun with magic' time!_

* * *

Numair spent the better part of the next day working his way through a pile of books that might have something buried in their pages that would prove helpful, just as many other mages and scholars were doing throughout the palace. It was a relief to leave the library behind after lunch and head out to find his new student, since he was getting precisely nowhere.

"How's it going?" he asked innocently, leaning on the fence next to her; she looked exhausted, frankly, and it took several attempts before she managed to answer hoarsely.

"Fine. It's all fine." Liar, but he wasn't going to press her about last night, not yet at least.

"I was wondering – about that range-finding experiment. You're too busy to try it now, I suppose."

Cloud trotted over towards them, and Daine glanced sharply at the pony before starting to laugh. He gave her an odd look; while it was good to see her laughing, he'd clearly missed something here. She shook her head breathlessly. "No, don't ask me. You really don't want to know!" Somewhat suspicious, he took her word for it as she turned back to the grey mare. "But there's no hearing spell for me to talk to him with. I can't ask Onua, not now. I shouldn't even really try it myself, not if I'm to earn my pay with these people."

By now totally confused, he watched as Cloud stamped. After a moment Daine turned back to him. "She says she'll go with you and let you know when she can't hear me any more."

"You mean _she'll_ undertake the test situation without dealing through you? Can she do that?" he asked, fascinated. He'd never really thought about wild magic working two ways before.

"She says she can. I know she always finds me if one of us wanders off."

"All right, then," he agreed, bowing somewhat ironically to the pony. "Lead on. And no biting."

* * *

The walk with the pony had given him a lot to think about. Now that he was paying attention, Cloud seemed different to the other horses; more aware, somehow. Certainly she seemed to understand everything he said to her. And she seemed to have grudgingly accepted him; when she bit him to let him know they were out of range, she was careful to catch his sleeve and not his skin. From Cloud, that might as well have been a declaration of love, he suspected as they returned to the palace and the stables. He did wish he knew what she'd said to Daine, though. And why wasn't the pony afraid of wolves? He'd been thinking about it on and off since the previous night, but truthfully he didn't know enough about horses to come up with any reasonable theory. _Maybe she's just as stubborn as her mistress._

That evening he returned to the mess hall to find Daine, having decided what he would show her first; she was still a little scared of this magic she'd never heard of, and he wanted to let her see that it was a wondrous thing. "Ready for lessons?" he asked, joining her and her friends at the table.

"How was it this afternoon?"

"We determined that your range, with Cloud at least, is a mile and a half. It may be more or less than that with animals who haven't been exposed to you for a prolonged period of time."

"You make her sound like a disease," the young man George had recommended to the Riders laughed. Evin, that was his name. "Are we going to need healers or something?"

Numair smiled. "No. But Daine, have you found that animals you spend a lot of time with are, well, smarter than others? Smarter in a human sense?"

She fidgeted, uncertain. "Is it bad?"

"No, how could it be? It doesn't make your animals less able to survive in the wild; quite the opposite." Now he was certain that she needed to see that her magic could be a good thing. "Come on. We're going for a walk."

Crossing the horse meadow took some time, as every animal there insisted on greeting her personally. It didn't matter; they weren't in any particular hurry. They had time to let their eyes adjust; he saw well in the dark, and it seemed she did as well. Once clear of the meadow, Numair took the lead, heading into the forest and weaving between the trees along a barely-visible trail to a small clearing with a pond in it that he had discovered some time ago.

"Have a seat," he told her softly, and she obeyed, looking slightly nervous. He moved to stand behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders reassuringly. "I'm going to use my Gift, but through _you_. You must understand that. If I did this with the king or Alanna, they wouldn't see what you will."

She was trembling under his hands. "If you say so."

He laid his fingers on her temples. "Now, do just as we do when we're meditating," he told her quietly. "Slow, deep breath – inhale. Hold it. Let it go, carefully. Again, in... and... out." He breathed with her, closing his eyes and concentrating; he deliberately hadn't told her what this involved, because it would have frightened her even more. Even people he'd known for years would have hesitated about letting him through their defences like this. Now he felt the calm of meditation settling over them both, and reached for the sense of the wild magic with his own magic.

_There._

"Open your eyes." He wasn't sure if he'd said it aloud or in her mind, but it didn't matter. She obeyed, and he heard her gasp, felt her shock. Opening his own eyes, he stared at the shimmering world around them, full of life and magic; he'd only ever seen flickers of this, pale shadows compared to what he was seeing now. She truly was powerful, and he felt privileged to be able to share this.

She moved, slowly, reaching down to pluck a blade of grass. The bright emerald fire darkened and she gasped. "I didn't mean to – "

"Hush," he told her softly. "Look at the earth."

He watched with her as she let the grass fall, its spine matching the bronze of the soil as it hit the ground. "It returns to the Goddess," she whispered, sounding awed, before turning to look around the clearing, then at herself, and finally at him. He followed her attention; this was so much more than he had seen before with other students, and far different from anything he could see with his own magic. The wild magic he had seen in her before looked different now; no longer an aura, he could see how the copper fire followed every vein of her body, matching the red that marked her as human. He'd never seen that before; with his other students, their magic had flickered over them, like the white fire of his own aura.

"Sit straight," he told her. "I have to remain in contact with you to keep the spell going."

She obeyed. "I wish I could see this by myself."

"You can learn. The vision is in your mind, like the power to heal. Just remember what your magic feels like, and practice reaching for it."

"Reaching for it _how?_"

Rather than try to find words to express an impossible concept, he showed her instead, feeling the shift in perception until he saw the wellspring of copper fire that was the source of her magic – again, far stronger than he had seen before.

Numair felt her reach for the magic, separating a thread of it and tossing it towards the owl that perched nearby; it was impressive that she had known how to do that. "You don't need the hand motion," he murmured. "In magic, the thought is the deed."

"If you _want_ it bad enough," she added. "That's what Ma said."

"She was right." The owl glided to them, perching on the arm she offered and studying them both, and Numair watched in silent fascination. He'd always liked animals, and at the university his teacher Lindhall had encouraged his interest, but he'd never seen a wild creature so close before.

You called to me, night-sister?

The voice was a shock, too. Even the strongest of his previous students had only had an increased awareness of animals; they could communicate after a fashion, but never so clearly and precisely. If he continued teaching Daine, he had a feeling she would end up teaching him.

"Only to greet you, silent one," she answered respectfully.

"You don't need to say it aloud," he murmured, and she shook her head.

"Can we do this a little bit at a time? Please?"

Her tone was almost pleading, and he smiled. This truly must be overwhelming for her; he knew what it was like to learn that you had powerful magic and start the long struggle to learn how to use it. "Whatever you say."

The owl ruffled his feathers, blinking slowly. It is not for the nestling to decide the proper time for lessons, he informed them both sternly before taking off and flying away.

"I heard that," Numair told her. "He's right," he added wryly. "And it's time to stop." Reluctantly, he let the magic go; it was a wrench to lose the vision, since he could only see it through her, but exhausting them both would get him into a lot of trouble. He watched regretfully as the sparkling life drained away and the night returned to black and grey shadows once more, before looking at her. "How do you feel?"

She didn't answer immediately, staring at something on the edge of the pool; he followed her gaze and frowned, trying to see what she was looking at. Without thinking, he spoke the light spell and was left blinking in the bright light that filled the clearing, catching only a glimpse before it vanished.

"Her hair was blue," Daine said distantly. "She was all over scales, and her hair was blue."

"Undine," Numair whispered in reply, staring at the place where the creature had vanished; he'd never seen one before. "I _think_ we just saw an undine – a water sprite." Moving slowly, he crossed to the pond's edge and knelt, staring curiously into the water. "I'm sorry, little one. Won't you come up again?"

"Maybe if you doused the light," Daine told him, and he felt stupid.

"Oh – of course." He broke the spell and stayed silent, letting his eyes adjust, watching hopefully for a further sighting. He would quite happily have stayed there all night, but Daine had to work tomorrow and was probably tired from what they'd done tonight; eventually, reluctantly, he abandoned the watch and roused her from where she was almost asleep.

"I'll have to tell the king," he remarked as Daine stretched. "Or maybe not," he added more thoughtfully. "She won't harm anyone. They're said to be incredibly shy of humans."

"I noticed." Her voice was dry; he smiled in response, lifting a hand and creating a small globe of light so they could see the path without straining.

"To see a water sprite," he murmured, mostly to himself, as they moved down the path. Tonight had been one experience he hoped never to forget. "We live in marvellous times, my little magelet."

"What's a magelet?" she asked, yawning.

He flushed slightly, not having meant to say it out loud. Feeling slightly embarrassed, he smiled sheepishly in the darkness. "Nothing, really. Well, 'little mage'. Isn't that what you are?" She didn't answer.

* * *

The following night she was keen to talk about what she had seen during the day, describing the flashes of colour at the corners of her vision; she also told him wonderingly of the copper fire she'd seen in Onua.

"Why so surprised?" Numair asked as they headed back towards the horse meadow. "She's – what's the K'miri term? – horse-hearted. Did you think Thayet would commission just _anyone_ to obtain mounts? The Riders depend on horses more than any other military company. Onua ensures they have the best."

"Does she know?"

"Of course." He pulled himself up to sit on the top rail of the fence. "She doesn't have it enough that she needed training in it, like you. There are a few people here with it; a man and his grandson in the palace mews, two sisters at the kennels, some of the hostlers. Stefan, the chief hostler, has a lot of it." Well, he had thought so until meeting Daine, at least. Stefan was barely a candle to her bonfire; she stood as far above the hostler as he himself stood above other mages. "He breeds great-horses – the extra-large mounts many knights need to ride in combat. I trained him."

Shaking her head, Daine climbed up to sit beside him. "And I only heard of all this two days ago."

Grinning, he reached to tweak her nose playfully. "Being all of thirteen, of course you should be omniscient," he teased. "Now, magelet – to work." He pointed to a single pony some distance off. "Call to it." She opened her mouth and he clapped his hand over it, nearly overbalancing in the process. "_Without_ sound."

She glared at him, her lips moving against his palm. "Then how'm I supposed to call her?"

"With your mind. One thing I've noticed is that you tend to be confused about how you speak to and hear animals. We're going to break you of the habit of assigning concrete manifestation to magical phenomena." He took his hand away.

"What?" She sounded so completely lost that he had to smile. He'd actually been quoting a lecture from his time at university; the rest of the lecture had been even less comprehensible and even he had dozed off by the end of it.

"Believing you actually hear or speak with your body when all of it is done with your mind," he translated. "Call that pony."

"'That pony' is a mare. Why can't I just talk to her?"

Numair sighed; he understood that she still distrusted thinking of what she did as magic, but if she was going to be this stubborn about every lesson... "A time may come when being heard will get you killed," he explained patiently. "Also, your mind needs discipline. If your thinking is more direct, what you can do with your thoughts will happen more directly. Learn to focus your mind; focus creates strength. Meditation helps you reach the same end."

He reached out and tapped her forehead lightly with a finger. "We're doing spring cleaning up here. Once you put everything into its proper place – once you organise your mind – you'll be able to find what you want quickly. Now call her, please."

An hour later they had had no success, and Daine's patience had clearly reached its limit; she looked tired and irritated, and Numair decided it was best to stop. There was no point pushing her too hard; once she made the connection on her own, it would be easier. "We'll keep practising," he told her calmly as they headed back to her room.

"Lucky me," she muttered, sounding sullen as she followed him into her room. "What's this?" she asked, noticing the book he'd left there earlier and curiously opening it; her reaction was everything he could have hoped for, and he resisted the urge to smile – his present seemed to be a success.

"It's a book on mammalian anatomy," he told her, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

"A book on what?"

He sighed. "I keep forgetting you're not a scholar – sorry. Anatomy is what's inside a body: muscles, veins, organs and so on. 'Mammalian' refers to mammals. You know what they are; you just don't know the fancy term. Warm-blooded animals with hair-covered bodies that suckle their young are mammals." There was a time he hadn't known all the fancy scientific terminology either; until going to Carthak he had had almost no formal education and had barely been able to read and write.

"That's most of my friends." She was only half-listening, lost in staring at the book.

"Exactly. If you're to learn healing, you need to understand how animals are put together."

"I already know some."

"This book will help you to _organise_ what you know and add to your present knowledge." He was belabouring the point, he knew, but this was important.

She looked distinctly unimpressed. "Why? My friends don't organise their minds. Everything they think about is all tumbled together, willy-nilly."

"For them that's enough," Numair answered patiently. "As animals they remember the past only vaguely. They are unable to visualise a future, apart from the change of seasons. They have no comprehension of mortality – of their deaths. They don't learn from books or teachers, so they have no need to structure their minds in order to find what they learn. You, however, are human and different. If you do not find a way to organise your mind, at worst you might go mad. At best, you'll be stupid."

Daine made a face and looked back at the book, from which he deduced that he'd won the argument, temporarily at least. "You'd best take this when you go. My friends come in every night. I wouldn't want it soiled."

He'd thought of that already. "The book is spelled against dirt and tearing. It's yours. I want you to use it, not admire it."

Her reaction surprised him. "Mine! No! It's – it's too valuable. The likes of me don't keep such things."

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place; so that was it. Well, he knew that attitude, too. He reached out and caught her hand. "Daine, listen to me." He pulled her down to sit beside him and made her look at him. "You're a student mage. You need books like this to do your work. I am your master." And if he ever managed to utter _that_ sentence again without getting a slap for it, he'd be amazed. "It's my duty – in this case it's my pleasure – to give you whatever books and scrolls I believe you require to learn. Unless you don't want to learn?" he added teasingly, and was rewarded with a smile.

"Odd's bobs, of course I do!"

"Good. Then get your book. We'll start at page one."

* * *

_Work on Wolf-Speaker is going pretty well, you'll be pleased to know. Poor Numair – once I took a look at the timeline of the book, I realised that he actually spends an entire week stuck outside Dunlath on the other side of the barrier before the final fight. Spending a whole week on his own, not knowing what's going on and not able to do anything about it = very unhappy mage. Should be fun to write._

_We're probably about a third of the way through Wild Magic now; as always, leave me a review and let me know what you think._

_**Loten.**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Edit April 2010: **FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to)._

* * *

_Another fairly long chapter, because it was either that or break it into two small chapters, which would have annoyed me. There's also a brief conversation in here entirely from my own head; at the Swoop, Daine tells Kalasin that Numair's in trouble in Carthak, but we never see the moment when she learns that herself, so I stuck it in here. Enjoy.

* * *

_

That set the pattern for the next few weeks. During the day she worked with the trainees, and Numair spent most of his time in the library; in the evenings he taught her, although truthfully she was learning so fast that he felt almost unnecessary once he'd given her a task to complete. Once she had made the decision to learn, Daine had thrown her heart and soul into it with a gratifying enthusiasm.

Finally, the king's progress departed, which meant tomorrow they would relocate and head for the Swoop. Hopefully that meant he would have a chance to go home and check on his tower; of late he'd seldom spent much time there, but he wanted to go through his books and see if there was anything he'd forgotten that might be useful. Besides, a change of scenery would be nice.

The evening's meditation was interrupted. Startled out of the near-trance, along with everyone else, he stared blankly at the door, which was almost being knocked off its hinges. Sarge was closest; as he opened the door, Cloud shoved past him. The pony's appearance was so unexpected that Numair almost thought he'd fallen asleep and was dreaming, until he noticed that Daine was the only one in the room who hadn't looked up. Suddenly worried, he got up and crossed the room just as Cloud knocked the girl over and began to nose at her.

"What happened?" he asked her softly, kneeling next to her. "She nearly kicked down the door to get at you."

She didn't answer him, instead looking at Cloud, after a moment producing sugar from a pocket and shakily feeding it to the pony. "You'd best go outside now," she whispered, and the mare obeyed.

He helped her up, aware that everyone in the room was staring at them. Turning his body to block as many of the stares as he could, he scrambled for a convincing lie. "It's all right. We were just trying an experiment. I didn't realise it would work so well." To avoid difficult questions, he led her out of the hall and to her own room, shutting the door firmly behind them before looking at her worriedly; he didn't like the expression on her face. She looked frightened, and haunted. "What happened?" he asked again.

"I felt sick. Just a headache, that's all."

He didn't need eyebright to know when he was being lied to. "Cloud wouldn't come here for that," he retorted. "She was in a panic. And what's this?" he asked, distracted by the sight of her necklace; he'd never seen it before. He picked it up carefully. "From its appearance, it's a claw."

"It's mine," she snapped, snatching it from him and tucking it back inside her shirt. "It's _private_. Can't I have anything private any more?"

That had been uncalled for. What on earth was wrong? She looked terrified under the anger. "Daine – "

Her voice rose until she was almost shouting over him. "Would you please go away? I'm tired and my head hurts! Can't you leave me alone for once?"

That hurt. He'd thought she trusted him; apparently not. Whatever was wrong, it was clearly more serious than he had realised. "Very well," he answered softly, sadly. "But I wish you would trust me." He left quietly, closing the door behind him, and headed for his own rooms; he didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment. He had a lot of thinking to do.

* * *

In the end, Numair had been up most of the night, struggling to make sense of what had happened. Something had gone badly wrong yesterday, and it had scared her. He'd thought he had worked out much of her story; illegitimate, she had been disliked in her home village and had been under pressure from her mother to be something she wasn't. Then her family had been killed; fire had been involved somewhere. And she was almost painfully unsure of her own worth. But none of that explained what could have happened yesterday, or why she wouldn't talk to him about it.

Eventually he had given up and gone to bed not long before dawn, deciding that there was nothing he could do unless she decided to trust him with whatever this terrible secret was. He wouldn't pressure her; he had his own secrets, after all.

The long night meant he had overslept; fortunately he had packed the day before. Collecting his horse from the stables, he rode along the column to the wagon Daine was driving, throwing his belongings carelessly into the back of it. "Wake me up when we stop for lunch," he told her tiredly, stretching out along Spots' neck and attempting to doze off.

After an interval that was nowhere near long enough, she poked him in the ribs and he opened one eye. "I think this is it." He nodded wearily and pushed himself straight in the saddle; it was going to be a long day.

In the afternoon Numair swallowed his pride and asked if she minded if he rode in the wagon with her, pretending not to see her smile. He knew he was a terrible rider already, thank you very much.

* * *

That evening he intercepted her on the way back to the campfires. "Lessons," he told her firmly. "As long as you and I are within riding distance of each other, my magelet, we will have lessons." She didn't argue, at least; one potential problem gone. He sat cross-legged next to Daine.

"Tonight we'll try something a bit different. While you were washing up, I untethered Mangle and Spots. I want you to call them both to us, at the same time."

"Why can't I call them one at a time?"

"You're being difficult," he told her, in the vain hope that for once she wouldn't argue with him.

"It don't make sense."

_Fine._ He explained patiently, "Remember the Stormwing attack in the horse meadow? You called quite a few animals to you, all at once. You might need to do something like that again some day. Wouldn't it be nice if – instead of calling entire herds – you only called enough horses to keep you safe?"

She couldn't think of an answer for that, it seemed; _another small victory_, he thought tiredly, as the two horses cantered over to nuzzle them. He stroked his gelding's nose. "See? That wasn't so bad," he told her. "Send them back, please."

She obeyed, and he turned his attention to setting up a speaking spell. "Onua, now, if you please." He snuffed the black fire between his fingers and looked back at Daine. "Our friend is releasing some of the other mounts. How many has she loosed?" He didn't know the answer to this, either, having left it up to Onua.

"Spots and Mangle are still free," she answered slowly. "Onua's loosed – let's see, Ox and General, Sarge's two horses, and her pair, Whisper and Silk, and also Darkmoon."

_Good._ "Call them."

He wasn't expecting her to succeed first time. This was more difficult than simply calling one or two animals, especially since she didn't know some of these horses as well. Settling more comfortably on the ground, he watched her, and saw it when she lost concentration as an owl screeched nearby. "Relax," he told her softly, gently. "It gets easier with practice. Find them, and call them – softly. You don't need too much."

Daine tried again, and for a moment he thought she had it until she gasped sharply and opened her eyes, the same almost-fear from last night crossing her face. "I can't," she told him shakily. "My head aches."

She was lying to him again, and now he was beginning to get annoyed. One way or another, this had to be sorted out, or her lessons weren't going to go much further. "You _must _learn this," he told her sternly. "You didn't have a headache before. Try again."

Her expression was convincing, but there was no whisper of magic against Numair's senses and he was almost certain she was no longer even attempting to do as he had asked. He drummed his fingers on the ground, watching her; this was completely out of character, and that more than anything said that this wasn't simple boredom or laziness. Those he could have dealt with, but something was seriously wrong here, and he could do nothing if she wouldn't talk to him. But... she had been working incredibly hard in the last month. He could let it be, for a little while, in the hope that she would come to him of her own accord.

Eventually he sighed. "Perhaps I push too hard. You've done well – too well, perhaps. Most apprentice mages take over a year to make the progress you have in a month."

She stared at him. "But I thought I wasn't – How can you tell?" Fear crossed her face. "Can you see in my mind?" Her reaction was understandable, but that didn't stop it hurting a little.

"No." Not entirely true. He could have, if he'd made the effort to do so; but it didn't happen casually. "I wouldn't if I could," he added more honestly. "We all have secrets." He was silent for a moment, thinking about some of his secrets; she'd run screaming if she knew, and he couldn't say she would be wrong. No, he had no business pressuring her into telling him anything.

Numair returned to her original question with a smile. "I'm a mage, a well-educated one. When I wish, I can see things hidden from normal vision – like a person's magical aura. See mine?" He lifted a hand suddenly wreathed in shadowy fire, wondering as he always did why the aura of the Gift always showed as white irrespective of the colour of the person's magic. "The first day I was strong enough to do it, I examined your aura." He let the magic fade from view.

"Your magic was like a tangle of vines around you, going in a hundred directions. You've been getting that tangle under control, pulling it inside your skin, and you're doing it faster than anyone I've ever known. Well, perhaps you've earned a night of rest. Come on – let's go back to the others. We'll meditate and stop there for the night."

* * *

They returned to camp and interrupted a strategy lesson; they were discussing his least favourite subject – Carthak. Personally he was holding out for an earthquake that would dump the whole country into the ocean and drown them. Or at least for Ozorne to get piles.

"Why won't he declare war, then?" one of the trainees asked.

Alanna answered. "It's true Carthak has the largest standing army in the world. But to attack us they have to cross water at every turn – the Inland Sea, or come up our coast on the Emerald Ocean. We have the advantage, being firmly on land when they have to come ashore to engage us."

Thayet joined in. "The navy's grown since my lord came to the throne. The emperor's policy of coastal raiding and paying bandits to attack in the mountains and hills has made the people in those areas determined to fight. Also, since His Majesty built his university outside Corus, we've brought a lot of mages to Tortall – enough even to make Emperor Ozorne's trained sorcerers think twice about taking us on."

_Time to change the subject_, Numair decided. "And only a fool would want to attack King Jonathan without some kind of real advantage," he said. "Not on Tortallan soil."

"Why's that, Master Numair?" someone asked.

"Jonathan's magic and the magic of the crown are tied into every grain of soil in this land," he explained. "Unless an enemy has some kind of advantage that will hurt the king, or keep him from calling on his magic, it's possible that every tree, stream and rock would form death traps for an enemy."

And on that cheerful note, it was time to meditate once more. Later, Daine asked Numair about Carthak as they walked back across the camp; she'd noticed that he tried to avoid the subject and was hesitantly trying to find out why. He bit his lip and wondered how much to tell her; he trusted her, but he hated talking about this. Finally he shrugged and smiled crookedly.

"It's complicated, magelet. I used to live in Carthak, after I left my home in Tyra; I went to the imperial university there when I was younger. I was even friends with the emperor, for a while. Then, when I was twenty... something happened."

"What?"

He shook his head. It was the one thing he couldn't make himself talk about; even Alanna and Jon didn't know the full story. He'd tried to tell them, more than once, and hadn't been able to. The memories hurt too much. "It doesn't matter. He wanted me to do something unpleasant and I couldn't do it. I refused, and Ozorne... isn't the kind of man you say no to. I had to leave Carthak in a hurry; I'm still wanted for treason there."

"_Treason?_" she echoed, taken aback. Numair's smile was lopsided.

"Yes. In Carthak, to disobey the emperor _is _treason."

"That's stupid. You're no traitor."

Oddly, it made him feel a little better to hear her say it; he smiled at her. "Thank you. Anyway, that's why I don't much like talking about Carthak. But for chance, I might still be there, finding ways of attacking Tortall."

Daine nodded slowly, thinking about it. "Is that why you came to work for the king?"

"Partly, I suppose. It was more complicated than that, though... I didn't come to Corus straight away. Someday, I'll tell you the whole story, but not tonight. It will take a long time to tell, and I don't particularly want anyone else to overhear."

Her expression changed at that; presumably she was thinking of her own secrets, and whatever had happened in the past couple of days. The moment of sharing was over for now; she was starting to close off once more. "All right."

"Good night, Daine. Sleep well."

"Good night."

* * *

The following evening, matters took a turn for the worse. From the beginning of the lesson, Daine was only pretending to try anything he asked of her; as far as he could tell, she didn't attempt to reach for her magic at all, even for simple things she had already mastered. In the end he halted the lesson before he lost his temper, wondering how far he could let this get before he had to interfere, and during the meditation session he watched his student carefully instead of meditating himself. He could tell from her face that she wasn't doing that, either, and that confused him – avoiding lessons was one thing, but she'd come to enjoy the meditation.

Numair followed her to her bedroll afterwards, making yet another attempt to persuade her to talk to him – besides, maybe she was ill or something. "Are you all right?" he asked softly, reaching out to feel her forehead – her temperature seemed normal, and her eyes were clear. He rephrased the question. "Is something wrong?"

She stared at him, swallowing, and for a moment he felt hopeful until a now-familiar look hardened her blue-grey eyes. "What's wrong, except for me being worked to death?" she snapped at him. "Honestly, can't you stop fussing at me for _one day_?" The outburst earned startled looks from everyone else in camp; before, she'd only been rude to him in private. "I'm tired of being watched all the time too!" She wrapped herself in her blankets, her back to them all, and he gave up with a sigh.

"Sleep well, magelet," he told her softly, before walking away. He caught Alanna's eyes briefly and shrugged, telling her that he had no idea what was going on, then shook his head slightly when she moved; he didn't want to talk about it, not yet.

He sought his own bed, wondering if maybe he was making too much of this. It could just be a fit of teenage temper; thirteen was not a pleasant age to be, as he well remembered. And he had been pushing her hard. But if that was all, what had caused the faint shadow of fear in her eyes? One thing was certain; he would have to be very sure of how to proceed before he tried to fix this, or he might do more damage.

* * *

Fog greeted them all the next morning. It seemed to have dampened everyone's mood, and conversation was almost non existent. Daine refused to speak to anyone, reinforcing the theory that this was just an adolescent sulking-fit; after a while he gave up trying to make conversation and rode in silence.

Reaching the sea in the afternoon seemed to cheer her up, at least. Maybe by that evening she'd be fit to live with; in the meantime, he had other things to think about, and wandered off along the beach towards a lump of stone that looked oddly regular for a sea-cliff, leaving her with Thayet.

The rock he'd found probably wasn't natural, but he wasn't really paying attention. Having decided to leave his student to her own devices for a while, his mind had returned to the problems Jon had asked the Tortallan mages to study. Mainly, of course, that meant the immortals and everything that went with them, but there were political issues as well. Absently turning a fragment of rock over in his fingers – it looked like masonry to him, although he found it difficult to feel even vague curiosity about where it might have originated – he couldn't help jumping at the distinctive sound of a K'mir war cry.

"Thayet, stop that," Numair called down the beach without bothering to look up; the woman was completely mad, wading out into the sea this far north. He didn't care if it was summer or not; it was far too cold. On impulse, he held up the rock. "Come look at this."

The queen walked up the beach to him and duly examined the rock, agreeing with him that it didn't seem natural before giving him a long look. "What's really eating you?" she asked. He made a face; nobody could fool her for long.

"Everything," he answered wryly after a minute, and she chuckled.

"True. We are all spoiled for choice of things to worry about." After a moment, she asked, "What's wrong with Daine?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," he replied. Both of them automatically turned to look at the girl, now knee-deep in the waves and staring out to sea; both saw the cloud of spray. Thayet yelled, trying to get Daine's attention; he started jogging across the damp sand, wearily wondering what was happening now.

A moment later he started running in earnest; some kind of huge animal was charging through the shallows. He was too far away; the creature slammed into Daine, knocking her over and sending her under the water. Reacting instinctively, Numair seized her; dangerous, with his Gift, and if he'd had time he would have done something else, but there wasn't time to think. He had to stop running and concentrate in case he hurt her, skidding in the wet sand as he held her clear of the water to let her get her breath back.

When she had recovered enough air to scream, he set her down carefully where Onua had come running with a blanket. That done, he turned his attention to the animal that had attacked her, growing suddenly angry as he stalked down the beach with fire gathering around his hands. It was a sea lion, a large one. Buri and Sarge were there now, both armed, all three now in range. He lifted his hand.

"No, don't!" The voice was Daine's; she could barely walk yet, but staggered forward anyway to throw herself between him and the sea lion. "Don't!"

He twisted his hand frantically, the spell dying at his fingertips less than a second before it would have incinerated her; fool girl! Shaking his head, he lifted a hand to stop the others, watching as girl and sea lion held some sort of conversation; apparently the animal wasn't truly dangerous. _Well, good,_ he told himself dryly, swallowing and waiting for his heart rate to calm down.

* * *

That evening, he was disappointed but not much surprised when she gathered her bedding and started off down the beach away from the camp. "No lessons?" he asked quietly.

"I promised I'd bring him something to eat." The sea lion, presumably. "And I do need a holiday." She looked away from him; at least she seemed ashamed of herself. And thankfully she'd stopped sulking and snapping at him. Even so, he wasn't happy.

"If that's what you want. Good night, then." Numair watched her the entire length of the beach, until he could no longer see her in the darkness, hoping that she might change her mind; she didn't. This couldn't continue much longer; now she had started her training, she had to finish it, or she would lose control completely. For students with the Gift, that was usually unpleasant and always fatal; he had no idea what would happen to anyone with wild magic, but it wasn't likely to be benign. Turning away, he sat and stared into the campfire, brooding.

When she approached him at breakfast, he was sufficiently irritated that he was on the verge of a nasty remark when the look on her face stopped him. She looked scared and unhappy, staring between him and Onua hesitantly. "Can I talk to you later?" she asked them in a small voice. "Alone?" She swallowed. "There's something about me you ought to know." Once they had agreed, she practically fled, leaving him and Onua staring at one another in puzzled relief; finally they'd get to hear the big secret. He had a feeling it wasn't going to be a pleasant tale.

* * *

_So, there you have it. I'm not getting as many reviews as I did at first; is that because you don't like it, or just don't have anything to say? Talk to me, people! I like seeing what you think. And I won't improve without feedback. _

_Wolf-Speaker's coming along quite nicely now. Once it's almost finished, I'll increase the frequency of my updates; it shouldn't be too much longer. _

_Thank you to all my readers, especially those who review._

_**Loten.**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Edit April 2010: **FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to)._

* * *

_Once more, thank you to all my reviewers. I'm slightly worried how much you're all looking forward to this chapter; I'm under a lot of pressure to get it right! Well, here we go..._

* * *

Numair wasn't sure what he had been expecting. All he had known of Daine's past was what little Onua had told him and he had managed to puzzle out for himself – that her mother and grandfather had been killed by bandits, she didn't know her father, and fire had been involved. That was bad enough, but the story she was telling them now beggared belief and set his mind reeling. Of all the tragic and unpleasant stories he had heard – and there had been a lot, his own included – hers was surely the worst. How had she survived? His respect for this girl grew as she talked, staring blindly into the small fire he had built, not seeing anything but what she was reliving.

When the sorry tale finally came to its conclusion, there was a long silence between the three of them. He wanted badly to say something comforting, but what could you say in response to that? He was helpless in the face of her pain, and too far away to offer physical support. It was Onua who reached out and hugged her, and then the tears started; he knew better than to interrupt and let her cry, using the time to organise his own thoughts in the face of what he had learned.

The first thought that came into his head was that humans really were despicable. The gods knew he'd faced his share of prejudice over the years – there were still people who made the Sign against evil when he walked past – but to try and kill a grief-stricken girl for refusing to allow the bandits to get away with what they had done was inexcusable. _Witchcraft and superstition, _he thought sourly. Thank the gods Daine hadn't had the Gift as well; there was no knowing what those ignorant fools would have done to someone who accidentally started fires – unfortunately a common problem for young untrained mages, and one that had caused him a few difficulties himself.

As for what she had done, well... Numair understood revenge, a little. Had he been in the same position, he would have done the same. Even murder could be justified in the right circumstances... and he had killed before, for far less noble reasons. He tried not to think about that, but his escape from Carthak had come with a price. It was one of the hardest lessons he had ever learned; everyone had a breaking point, and once you reached it there was nothing, _nothing _you wouldn't do to make it stop. Silently, he pushed the memories away; this wasn't about him now. That part of his life was behind him; what mattered now was helping Daine to deal with it. She was luckier than he had been; she didn't need to face it alone. Not that he intended to tell her so, not yet. It would be a very long time, if ever, before they had that conversation.

His mind raced; the tragedy of losing her family must have been the catalyst that fully awoke her wild magic – the Gift worked the same way, usually manifesting for the first time during a period of strong emotion. Wild magic was unpredictable, and that coupled with the circumstances had evidently overwhelmed her humanity; that she had been able to overcome it, however imperfectly, completely alone was nothing short of miraculous. Shock and grief could do terrible things to people; it didn't make her insane.

And as for running with wolves... Well, there had been legends about that for as long as wolves had existed, as far as he knew. It was extremely interesting to discover that in this case there was some truth to the tales; maybe someday when the memories weren't so raw, they could have a talk about it. At least now he knew why Cloud seemed unafraid of them; that had been nagging at the back of his mind for weeks – an unsolved puzzle was the most annoying thing in the world, as far as Numair was concerned. It didn't occur to him to be alarmed or disgusted by what he'd heard; he was too busy being interested.

This explained everything, and he certainly understood why she had been too afraid to talk to him. Hardly surprising; if it had been him, he would have found a hole to crawl into and never come out again. No wonder she had been terrified. There was one thing he didn't understand, though. "What about the badger?" he asked, when she was calm once more. She shrugged.

"He comes in my dreams, sort of. He told me he promised my da he'd look after me." She fumbled for her necklace. "This is his claw; he uses it to find me." Falteringly, she described each dream as best she could. "Last night he told me to tell you everything." A little more than merely told her, it seemed; her shoulders were scratched. Onua began tending the small wounds as he thought.

"'Time is running out' – 'the storm will be here'," Numair repeated sourly from the badger's words. "What time? What storm?" He sighed. "I hate omens. They depend on translation, and I was never good at it." If he had been, he would have left Carthak years before he had, and a great deal faster. "If he tells you anything more solid, let me know." She nodded.

"As for the rest... I never heard of a human with wild magic losing contact with his essence – the part that tells us we are human. On the other hand, I've never met anyone with wild magic as powerful as yours. It_ is_ conceivable that your bond to animals overwhelms your humanity." He rubbed his hands together, feeling the stickiness of salt on his skin, thinking. "Well, _that's_ easy enough to fix."

He looked up to find her staring at him. "It _is?_ All this time I've been afraid of joining a herd or a pack or a flock or whatever, and I could've _fixed_ it?" Her tone made him bite back a smile; she sounded utterly exasperated.

"With help from your humble servant." Numair stretched, glad that he had actually slept last night; the spell itself would hopefully be simple enough – he was more or less going to be making it up as he went along – but the concentration it would require wasn't something to be taken lightly. "Are you up to meditating now? I won't let you swim off with the sea lions," he added teasingly, smiling at her until she smiled back.

Onua patted Daine's knee. "I leave you mages to it. I'm going to camp and torture some trainees." More quietly, she added, "Thanks for trusting me, Daine." He nodded agreement with that, barely able to imagine what it had cost her.

"I wish I'd told before," Daine answered guiltily. "Only I was scared – "

Onua stood up, dusting herself off. "After your village hunting you, I'm surprised you made yourself talk to another human again," she said, unknowingly echoing Numair's earlier thoughts. "Don't worry about it. And don't let him work you too hard." That was meant for him, not Daine; he rolled his eyes, smiling slightly.

"She's quite a woman," he told Daine. "You have a good friend in her."

"I know."

"Now – just like meditation." He moved around the fire and settled behind her, gently resting his fingers on her temples as she closed her eyes and began to breathe in the familiar careful rhythm. She didn't know what he was going to do, which was just as well; he wasn't sure she really understood what he'd done that first night to show her that vision, and he was going far deeper into her mind this time. He didn't feel comfortable doing so without explicit permission, but she would never have agreed otherwise and this was very important.

Besides, he wasn't really going into her mind, more... around it. Closing his eyes, he concentrated, visualising the centre of her magic as he had shown it to her before, and then went deeper. Now, if he listened, he could hear her thoughts, touch her memories and utterly destroy her psyche; the idea had always revolted him, frankly. He closed off from that; it wasn't her mind as such that was important here but her personality, her presence. In order to separate her from her magic, he had to get a sense of who she really was. The visualisation was simple enough, a core of white fire at the heart of the copper magic, but that wasn't enough.

The first impression he got was sorrow; unsurprising, given that she had just relived the worst moments of her life. The depth of her pain seemed endless now, but she would heal. There was anger too, a hatred and fury towards the men who had done those things that he didn't think she was even aware of. And the uncertainty and self-doubt he had already seen in her, the vague feeling that she somehow wasn't good enough, which hurt to see, or feel, or however this worked - even he didn't really understand it. She had had a hard life, certainly, one that had driven her to the brink and beyond.

But it wasn't all darkness. Somewhere in the mess of loss and anger there was laughter, and humour, flashes of the girl he was just beginning to understand. And under everything, running right through the core of her, there was an unbelievable strength and courage that awed him; she had endured more in a couple of years than most people faced in a lifetime, and she had come through it on her own and emerged remarkably undamaged by the experience. This was a girl who would never back away from anything, no matter how it scared her.

In the face of such vital determination, Numair felt distinctly inferior; certainly his own personality was nothing so fine. Oddly humbled by it, he took a breath and concentrated on holding the sense of her in his mind, focusing on who and what she was; once he was certain he had it, he reached for his Gift, black fire entering the space where this was taking place. It was nothing physical; the visualisation was only a mechanism, a representation of what was actually happening.

The spell appeared as a glass wall. It didn't have to be; it could have been anything - stone, wood, cloth, or even just light – but he felt that if it was something important then you should put some effort in. The runes written on it didn't really mean anything much either, not to him; they were supposed to aid concentration and focus the mind, but in all honesty the knowledge of what would happen if he made a mistake was more than enough to keep his mind perfectly focused. Still, they wouldn't hurt, and might help.

And just like that, it was done. Numair felt the magic neatly encircle everything he had felt as her, the wild magic falling away as the two ends of the 'wall' met and sealed. Slowly and carefully he eased away and returned to his own body, feeling tired but pleased; a moment later Daine opened her eyes.

"How do you feel?" he asked. She tried to stand and staggered, obviously stiff; so was he, he realised, and began to stretch his muscles as he watched her.

"A bit rusty, but aside from that, wonderful. Am I fixed? Am I all right?"

"You tell me," he replied dryly. "Try the listening again. Sea lions live in groups like wolves and horses. If you're going to lose yourself, you should be able to with them. If not, the Rider ponies are just down the beach."

She closed her eyes, and he stood slowly, stretching as he waited. After a moment she opened them again and grinned at him in such pure delight that he couldn't help smiling back at her. "Did you forget who Daine is?" he asked lightly.

"Nope," she answered happily.

"Sure you don't want to plunge into salty water and eat live octopi?" he teased. "That's what they eat, among other things."

That earned him a suspicious look. "What's an octopi?"

"One octopus is an octopus. Two octopuses or more are octopi."

"So what's an octopus?"

"I take it what all this means is you were able to stay Daine."

"It does. What's an octopus?"

He laughed. _That's my girl._ "All right, magelet. Let's go to sea."

* * *

The rest of the day passed in a blur of marine life, the atmosphere between them much more relaxed and happy and the lessons far more enjoyable. Nonetheless, it was a relief to seek his bed that night; the spell hadn't taken much power, but the effort and concentration involved had drained him.

So, naturally, only a couple of hours later he was woken up by Daine's voice softly calling him. "Numair?"

_What could you possibly want at this time of night?_ Groggily he opened his eyes and sat up. "Daine? Is something the matter?"

Her answer surprised him. "I've an otter with a broken leg here. I hate to disturb you, but – now I'm doing better with the magic, I thought there might be a chance I could – "

The prospect was possibly the only thing interesting enough to wake him up. "Of course. Come in." Shaking off his weariness, he lit the inside of the tent so they could see what they were doing. "Sit." She did so, cradling the sea otter in her lap carefully. "You'll go deep, but into your patient instead of yourself," he explained. "You need to see – " he squinted at the otter "– _her_ bones from the inside – do you understand?"

"I understand right enough. I'm just not sure I can do it."

"I can help with that part," he reassured her. "What you must do on your own is apply your magic to the break and will it to heal. You need to burn out any infection. Make sure the muscles, veins, and nerves knit together, not just the bone." She probably knew all that already, but better safe than sorry.

"The strength of your desire is what will complete the task. You must _want_ this to work more than anything, and keep on wanting it, no matter how weary you become. That's the hard part – maintaining the concentration to finish. As it tires, your mind will want to attend to something else, just as it does in meditation. You'll get a muscle spasm or an itch, and you'll want to see to it. You can't – not unless you plan to resume splinting your friends and hoping you can keep them quiet long enough for an injury to mend."

Numair watched her staring at the otter. The memory of what he had sensed in her mind was still fresh, and he wasn't at all surprised when she looked back at him with fierce determination in her eyes. "I'll do it. Let's go."

This was a new experience for him as well as for her, but it wasn't difficult as such; as with what he had done earlier, it was the concentration that took the effort more than the actual magic, although it would be draining her strength as well. He guided her through the otter's body to the broken paw, and showed her how to shape her magic around the injury, then settled back to watch – figuratively speaking. The rest had to come from her; all he could do was show her the way.

Numair watched with silent fascination as the copper fire of her magic helped bone to form and repair the gap, followed by marrow inside the splinters of bone. The exact mechanism escaped him, but just watching from outside was interesting enough, and he was surprised to feel a faint touch of envy as the healing continued. Some things he could do with his Gift were amazing, such as the spell he had done earlier, but so much of what he could do was destructive and violent. It would have been nice to be able to do something benign and gentle... The thought dissolved as the healing continued and he watched intently until finally new skin closed over healthy tissue and it was done.

By this time Daine looked exhausted, swaying where she sat. "How are you feeling?" he asked. She stared at him blankly, seeming not to have heard him, her eyes closing despite herself; he barely caught her as she collapsed.

Aware of eyes on him, he turned his head and met the curious gaze of the sea otter, apparently none the worse for the experience; no wonder, since all the energy for the healing had come from Daine. He leaned sideways carefully and tugged open the tent flap, allowing the animal to leave, then looked back at his student, now happily snuggled into his bedding and so deeply asleep he doubted a thunderstorm would wake her.

Smiling wryly, he drew a blanket up over her and found another for himself, crawling out of the tent and going to curl up under one of the wagons for the rest of the night.

* * *

_There you have it, folks. I hope this is what you all wanted to read; I know you were all looking forward to this chapter. I rewrote it several times, I have to admit; hopefully it wasn't a waste of time. I was hoping to reach 50 reviews before updating this time, but 49 is still pretty good and I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer. Next time: Numair gets totally irrational (that was so much fun to write) and we have fun with griffins._

_As always, please keep reviewing._

_**Loten.**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Edit April 2010: **FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to)._

* * *

_Lots of reviews this time! __That makes me very happy. So happy, in fact, that you get an early update that's longer than usual. Because I love you all.

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_

Naturally, he was in for a certain amount of teasing the following morning when Alanna and Onua discovered that he'd been driven from his tent by a thirteen year old girl. He had to admit it was quite funny, but he hadn't had much choice in the matter; wild magic or the Gift, when a mage was exhausted, they _had _to sleep, and nothing was going to wake Daine until she'd recovered. He did warn them not to tease her about it, though, not until he'd had a chance to see how she felt about yesterday's events.

She didn't wake up until the afternoon, by which time it was raining again. He'd rigged a canvas awning nearby so that he could keep an eye on her while he worked, and was bent over his notes when she finally crawled out of the tent, yawning. Numair smiled at her, setting his work down. "How do you feel?"

Typically, she ignored his question to ask one of her own. "How is she?"

"She's fine," he said reassuringly. "I saw her swim off a while ago. We had lunch," he added, handing over a bag. "I kept some for you."

As he'd expected, she fell on the food as though she hadn't eaten in weeks; it seemed that her magical exhaustion was indeed the same as that granted by the Gift. Smiling wryly, he returned to his notes until she spoke again.

"I can't believe how _hungry _I was."

"You worked hard," he pointed out. "Of course you're hungry."

"How long did it take?"

"Some hours – that's to be expected. Healing in wild magic is more difficult than it is with the Gift. Wild magic depends on the body's own power to mend what's damaged. The Gift simply restores health that was lost," he explained.

"One thing I don't understand," Daine said slowly, and Numair set his notes aside to give her his full attention. "Onua said I must've healed the birds in the marsh – remember? But I didn't know how to heal then, and it took me hours to do it now." She broke off and tried to stifle another yawn. "I'm also worn out. Maybe I fainted in the marsh, but I never felt like this."

"Hmm." He absently fingered the bridge of his nose, thinking about it. It was a pity he hadn't been in any state to watch what had happened in the marsh; it would have made things simpler. "Several possible theories exist," he mused aloud, "but only one fits both of the limitations you've just described. I'd have to say the birds' _need _to be healed pulled the magic out of you in raw form. You didn't force it to work within the limits of _your_ strength then – you served only as a channel. The magnitude of the power transfer made you lose consciousness, but your overall health and reserves of strength were unaffected."

He surfaced from the lecture to make sure he hadn't lost her; she nodded slowly, and he smiled wryly. "That _is _the problem with wild magic – it has been known to act without the cooperation of the bearer." Even his own Gift wasn't quite that unpredictable, at least not now – although there had been one or two interesting events when he was younger.

"You mean it could happen again, and I couldn't stop it?" Daine asked uncertainly. Numair gave her a sympathetic look.

"I'm afraid so. If it's any help, I imagine the need in those connected to you by wild magic would have to be overwhelming. It's only happened once that you know of? No fainting spells as a child?" She shook her head.

"Once in thirteen years, then. I wouldn't worry, if I were you," he said reassuringly, and tried to hold back a grin when she yawned outright. "Go back to sleep," he told her dryly. "I'll wake you for supper." It seemed he'd be spending tonight sleeping under the wagon as well.

* * *

Daine recovered faster than he had expected; apparently wild magic regenerated more quickly than the Gift did, or she was simply stronger. Whatever the reason, her lessons over the next few days proceeded rapidly as they began practising with larger groups of different animals; each task he thought of took her less time to master, and she was devouring the anatomy lessons with astonishing speed.

Woken as usual by Sarge's bellow a few mornings later, Numair opened his eyes with difficulty and attempted to focus on the world around him; he wasn't much of a morning person and it was usually difficult to get anything coherent out of him until he'd been awake for a while. Distantly he heard Daine call, "Stop!" and crawled out of his tent to see who she was shouting at.

To his mild surprise, it turned out to be a herd of mule deer. He hadn't seen them this close before, and took a moment to enjoy the sight before he heard Daine speak again, closer this time. "What'm I doing? Go on, scat!" The deer did as they were told, and he felt proud of his student as he dragged himself to his feet and walked over to her, ignoring everyone staring.

"It's a good idea not to say anything out loud," he murmured, smiling when she looked up at him; she was doing very well indeed. "It keeps the uninitiated from noticing. Just a little professional advice."

The Lioness' voice interrupted them. "Congratulations, Numair. Your student learns fast." He nodded agreement, smiling down at Daine, who grinned back at him before answering.

"I have a good teacher." Absurdly pleased by the compliment, he reached out and playfully tousled her hair, before Sarge took over the proceedings and sent everyone scattering to gather their things.

They would be moving faster today; Numair wearily promised himself for what was probably the four hundredth time that someday he'd find time to actually learn to ride properly. It wasn't so much that he was a _bad _rider; he could stay in the saddle – most of the time – at any speed including a gallop, provided he had advance warning. He simply wasn't particularly graceful, and still hadn't quite mastered the knack of moving with the horse to minimise saddle soreness.

* * *

It was around noon when Daine found the injured rabbit. This time he let her do the work by herself, riding near the wagon to watch and to help if necessary; the road was rough here, and the jolting of the wagon kept breaking her concentration. Eventually she gave up on that and asked to switch places with him; that took a little manoeuvring, but finally she was settled on Spots with the rabbit and he was attempting to see what was going on from the wagon seat, letting the cob pulling it manage by himself.

Not only did she manage the healing with no guidance from him, but it took less time than the otter had – although still much of the afternoon had passed – and she seemed less exhausted afterwards. Sharing her triumph, he laughingly told her that if she kept this up he'd run out of things to teach her in a couple of months at most, making her blush as she took her place on the wagon once more.

* * *

That evening they saw dolphins just offshore; Numair recognised the gleam in Daine's eyes as eerily similar to the one he himself got when he encountered some interesting new spell, and decided there was little point in lessons tonight. She wouldn't be listening to anything but the dolphins anyway, and after healing the rabbit earlier she'd earned a night off. Later he'd ask her what she'd learned, but for now he'd leave her be.

He was half-heartedly grooming Spots once camp was pitched when he felt the by now all too familiar sensation of teeth clamping around his elbow. By Cloud's standards, it was barely a nip, not even breaking skin, but he still wasn't terribly pleased as he turned to scowl at the pony. "I haven't done anything," he informed her tartly, rubbing his arm, "so what was that for?"

The mare ignored him, pointedly turning her head to look towards the distant bluff; puzzled, Numair followed her gaze to see Daine sitting on the grass. "What?" he asked the pony, confused. She snorted impatiently at him; looking around, he noticed that Spots was also staring towards the girl, as were the other horses. Numair shrugged, still none the wiser, and started walking out onto the bluff; he'd ask Daine why the horses were acting strangely. He hadn't gone three paces before the distant figure swayed and fell over sideways.

"Alanna!" someone yelled. It took Numair a moment to realise that it had been him, but by that time he was already running. "Come quick!"

* * *

For what was probably the thousandth time in his life, Numair cursed the fact that he couldn't heal. Sitting and doing nothing had never been his strong point. He trusted Alanna with his life, of course, but it was still very difficult for him to just watch as the Lioness attempted to revive Daine. She knew that, which was why he was now holding his student; it wasn't necessary for the healing, but at least he felt he was doing _something_.

It was only a minute or so before Alanna's magic restarted Daine's heart, but it felt much longer. Numair hardly dared to breathe until at last the Lioness sat back, looking relieved, and Daine stirred in his arms; he'd thought she was dead – well, technically, he supposed she had been, even if only for a minute. His personality made him terribly protective of his friends, and he had truly been scared – so, naturally, once he realised she was going to be all right, he lost his temper.

"You fiend!" he snapped at her, shaking her for good measure. "What on earth _possessed _you? You were _dead! _I ought to kill you myself!"

"Numair, calm down," Alanna told him wearily; she knew the reason for this reaction. He recognised that he wasn't being entirely rational at this point and attempted to do as she'd said, as she bent over Daine. "How are you, youngling? You gave us quite a scare." _That's an understatement, _Numair reflected, concentrating on his breathing; for a moment he'd half-thought Alanna might need to jump-start his heart as well.

Daine reached for the Lioness' hand. "You're the purple fire. You brought me back?"

"I gave you a direct jolt to the heart. We thought we'd lost you." Numair nodded silently, starting to regain some sort of control over himself.

Daine frowned. "My heart? It made too much noise. I wanted it to quiet down so I could talk with the dolphins."

His shaky control vanished once more. "Do you _hear _her?" he appealed to anyone who was listening. "She wanted to talk to dolphins, so she stopped her own blessed _heart! _Mithros, Mynoss and Shakith!"

She sat up, breaking his grip, and he sat back on his heels. "I never."

Drawing in a breath, Numair opened his mouth to give her a piece of his mind, and felt a hand clamp over his jaw from behind. Onua's voice sounded close to his ear. "Not until you can talk without screaming." Briefly Numair considered standing up; none of his friends could silence him without a chair to stand on if he did. In the end he lapsed into a wounded silence and let Alanna explain.

"Daine, meditation is done for control over body responses, and thus over mind." His friend was laughing at him silently, he could tell. Well, he considered that he'd had every right to be scared. The Lioness went on, "In cutting back the sound of your heart, you were cutting back the heartbeat itself."

"Well, I won't do _that_ again," Daine promised. "I feel like a mule kicked me in the ribs." _No more than you deserve, _Numair grumbled silently, wondering if he should take a leaf from Cloud's book and bite Onua if she didn't let go of him.

"In a way, one did," Alanna remarked, chuckling. "I gave you quite a shock, youngster."

"Will you behave now?" Onua asked Numair as Daine stood up shakily. He nodded, feeling somewhat calmer now, and sighed when she took her hand away, standing up and dusting himself off. "And men say _we're _emotional," she told Daine, who smiled; Numair didn't consider that very fair. He'd never said any such thing about any of his friends, who were frankly the most terrifying women on earth; he could use a lot of words to describe them, but 'emotional' wouldn't be on the list. "Don't do that again, please. I'd hate to find a new assistant at this time of year." She walked away, and Daine looked up at him.

Numair took a deep breath and concentrated on not screaming. It hadn't been her fault; if he told himself that often enough, he might believe it. "May I ask why you couldn't hear dolphins in the _usual _way?" he asked tightly.

She rubbed her eyes. "I was tired."

"You were tired – ah." He understood now; how many times had he done stupid things because he'd tried something he didn't have the power for? His temper subsided a little. "That makes it much clearer. Listen, magelet. The _next _time you're tired, try _resting _for a while. If you simply _can't _rest, go where you'll get nice and chilled, or step into salt water." He waved a hand towards the ocean. "As you can see, there is quite a bit of it down there."

"I don't get it."

He sighed. "Reductions in temperature or contact with salt water can act as amplifiers for magic."

"So that's why the whale songs are so loud in the water!"

"Yes, that's why they're loud," he replied patiently. "Daine, you must realise – these things you're doing when you meditate are _real_. When you reduce the inner sound of your breathing, you're reducing your _breath. _When you quiet your heart, you're slowing it _down. _Your body will react – understand?"

"Yes, sir," she answered in as close to a meek tone as he was ever going to hear from her. Numair relaxed, and would have been able to let go of his temper entirely had she not spoken again. "Do people have visions when they think they're dead?"

"I don't _know!_" he snapped. "I've never _tried _it!"

"Oh, well, I can see there's no talking to _you _for the rest of the night," she told him. "Not until you're out of this pet you're in."

"The pet _I'm _in?" he demanded; she was already walking away from him. Looking around, he discovered that everyone had carefully moved away; nobody was going to stay within earshot of a powerful mage in a bad mood. _This doesn't seem fair somehow. She almost dies, and it's my fault? _Scowling, he stalked off in the opposite direction, feeling decidedly ill-used.

* * *

Once again, Numair was woken before dawn by his student. Still not in the best of moods, he crawled out of his bedding and tried to focus on what she was telling him, but she was soaked to the skin and not entirely coherent; something about Stormwings watching the coast. He'd been up half the night and was almost too tired to understand; certainly too tired to do much about it without help. Building a fire and ordering her to dry off, he rounded up the other adults and left them trying to get the full story from her, reluctantly picking his way down the cliff to the shore.

The water was every bit as cold as he had feared. Wincing, he rolled up his breeches and waded out until he was knee deep; nothing in the world was going to make him go any deeper, and he didn't care _what_ might be watching them. Once his feet had gone numb, he took a breath and let his senses expand, the cold salt water carrying him further; he found the first Stormwing easily enough, hidden in the clouds, the red-gold of its magic clearly visible. Turning slowly, dimly aware that he was shivering so hard his teeth were chattering, he turned his attention northwards and found more; the same to the south. Just as Daine had described, a long line of immortals were watching the coast.

_What for, though? _Frowning, Numair carefully waded back to shore, almost falling, numb to the knees now and freezing cold. Scrambling back up the bluff warmed him a little, but he was relieved to get back to the fire; sitting down, he began drying himself, shivering fitfully as he tried to think of a reason for the surveillance.

"How can they stay in one place like that?" Buri asked him; gathering his wits, he tuned back in to their conversation.

"They have their own magic," he replied shakily, edging closer to the fire and quietly cursing the fact that they were this far north; the feeling was slowly coming back into his feet now.

"Can they see everything?" Alanna asked. "Can they look through walls or stone?"

_Now, that's a cheerful thought! _He certainly hoped not. Daine answered, sounding none the worse for her experiences of the past day. "I think they see like hawks. I don't know what they can do with their magic."

"They can use only a little without being noticed," he said quietly, still shivering fitfully but starting to warm up again. "If a sorcerer knows where to look, he can see the aura of their magic for miles. All they dare risk is the bit that holds them aloft." He made a face. "Once I thought to _look _that far, of course."

"Don't blame yourself," Alanna said tartly. "I see magic too, and _I_ never spotted them." Numair wasn't sure that made it any better, but he kept silent. The Lioness patted Daine's shoulder and stood up. "Good work. I have to let Jonathan know. He won't be pleased." She walked off, away from the camp and the trainees now stirring to life; a few minutes later her distant fire turned purple as she called the king.

"What now?" Buri asked the queen, poking up the fire as Numair retrieved his socks and boots. Thayet sighed.

"I _wanted _to stay a few days at Buzzard Rocks, but maybe that's not a good idea. We'll move them along today, camp early at the Rocks, and go before dawn. Onua can ward the camp. There's not much else _we _can do, once my lord gets Alanna's message."

"We've seen fishing boats and villages," Onua said thoughtfully, unknowingly picking out the part that had been bothering Numair. "They aren't raiding. They aren't raiding, and they aren't killing."

"You sound almost sorry," Buri said dryly.

"In a way, I am," the horsemistress replied. "That would make sense." She stood up. "They're watching our coast like cats at mouseholes, but who's the mouse?"

* * *

By the time they were on the move, Numair had managed to wake up properly and was feeling more like himself again. He hadn't entirely forgiven Daine for the scare she'd given him, but he was prepared to let it go; he wasn't the sort who held grudges, and it hadn't been deliberate. They spent the time discussing whales and dolphins; he recognised a growing obsession when he saw it, and couldn't help some amusement as he considered how alike he and his student seemed to be in some ways.

The lessons came to a stop when they reached Buzzard Rocks, however. The village was deserted and silent. Thayet separated the trainees into groups and organised a search of the area, although what she thought they were going to find, Numair wasn't sure. He wandered off amongst the buildings, Daine following him, poking around aimlessly for some sign of what might have happened here. "It happened fast, whatever it was," he muttered. "Yet they did have a chance to pack and gather livestock."

Turning, he saw Daine rubbing her ear, her head slightly to one side. "What's the matter with your ears?"

She flushed. "I keep hearing this – _sound._"

"Oh?" He listened for a moment and heard nothing. "Hearing with your ears, or your mind?" he asked pointedly.

There was a short pause. "With my mind. Sorry."

"Is it like the Stormwings?"

"No – more like the undine, but not _like _her exactly. And I have this feeling, as if – I don't know – when I see a juggler or something marvellous." She gave him an unhappy look. "I'm sorry – I can't tell you anything else."

"Don't worry," he told her gently; he hadn't expected it, really. With any form of magic, a lot of it was surprisingly individual; for example, the way he saw magical residue was very different from how Alanna could see it. That made some things all but impossible to explain; you either understood it or you didn't. "Come on – maybe the others have learned something. Tell me right away if anything changes."

They headed back through the deserted village to the main square – such as it was; Buzzard Rocks was a tiny place. It seemed nobody had found anything, which was hardly surprising. "They had time to pack," Alanna said slowly, echoing Numair's earlier musing. "It wasn't a raid or disease – "

Daine drew in a sharp breath, and one of the female trainees screamed. Numair stared, as chaos erupted around them and the horses panicked; he'd never seen the immortals now gliding in towards them, but they were easy enough to identify. _Griffins! _He hadn't known there were any left; as far as he knew, they hadn't been seen by mortals in centuries. He was dimly aware of Daine calming the anxious horses and heard Thayet call for weapons, but he didn't move, staring in silent fascination as the griffins circled and came at them again, roaring now. _They're... beautiful._

It didn't occur to him to try and attack them. Daine hadn't said they were dangerous and had made no attempt to grab her bow; besides, as he watched some truly formidable claws slicing through the canvas covering one of the carts, if the immortals had actually been attacking he was reasonably certain they would have killed several people by now. This was what, a warning? He looked at Daine, wondering if her magic could tell them anything.

She was staring worriedly at the Riders, now armed. "Stop!" she called, without much hope of it working; Buri and Thayet fired the first two shots as the griffins turned for a third pass. "_No!_" she tried again, shouting now. "Leave them be!"

"We're under _attack!_" Buri yelled in answer. Numair rolled his eyes; _No, we aren't. But we will be if you keep shooting at them. _Shaking his head, he started forward as Daine tried again.

"Don't shoot! They don't understand. If you'll _give _me a second – " The frustration was clear in her voice. Nobody was listening to her; by now fifteen of them were armed and about to fire. Daine screamed in sheer fury, and wild magic flared across Numair's senses; he watched in shock as every pony and horse in the vicinity forgot their terror and turned on the humans, snapping for the arrows and knocking the bows out of their riders' hands. _Oops. _Cloud took advantage of the situation to shoulder into him, almost pushing him over; he gave the mare a dirty look, which she met innocently, and turned to look at Daine.

Ignoring the chaos erupting around her, she was racing towards the griffins; Numair followed as she called to them. "No! _Stop! _It's not what you think – it's not what _they _think!" She stopped, and he saw her magic flare again, deliberately this time and targeted solely at the approaching immortals. Whatever she said to them seemed to work; the female griffin broke off entirely and curved away further down the beach, the male landing just in front of the girl and looking down at her.

Catching up, Numair stared at the immortal in fascinated awe. The few drawings he'd seen hadn't done them justice. "It's all right to put down the weapons?" he asked Daine; not that the horses had left them much choice. The griffin nodded, effectively diverting his thoughts, and he looked back at the immortal. "You can understand me?"

"A little, he says," Daine replied. "It's ideas he gets, like 'weapons' and 'safety'."

_Incredible. _"Thank you," he told the griffin, reluctantly turning away and heading back towards the Riders, who had finally managed to regain control over their horses. _Maybe they'll listen next time, _he decided uncharitably. "Put down your bows," he called. "They're not after us. Let Daine handle it." That earned him a volley of glares, all of which he ignored as he turned back towards the griffin, wanting to see more of the conversation taking place; Alanna passed him on her warhorse, weapons in hand, and he rolled his eyes as he drew closer.

"Ask him where the village is," Alanna ordered. Daine was more concerned with calming the terrified stallion, but obediently looked up at the griffin, her eyes narrowing in concentration.

She swallowed and whispered something, her expression uncertain; Numair drew closer in time to hear her say hesitantly, "Lioness, I – I _think _he wants you to explain the device on your shield. He won't talk about anything else till you do."

That was interesting. Numair glanced at the stylised rampant lioness badge as though seeing it for the first time; it did look sort of like a griffin, with a different head and no wings. Surprisingly, Alanna answered the question, although from her tone she was far from happy about it.

"It's a lioness, my own sign. A female lion."

The griffin stretched his wings. Daine winced, obviously struggling with the translation; Numair concentrated and saw the blaze of magic surrounding the pair. Moving to stand behind her, he rested a hand at the nape of her neck, whispering a word; light surrounded them. "Calm down," he told her gently, dimly aware of the feel of the griffin's speech when he touched her. "Relax. I'm shielding you. Take a deep breath – good girl. You can manage this – just go easily." He watched quietly as she closed her eyes and concentrated, breathing more easily and relaxing a little, finally rewarding his faith in her by twisting to look up at him with a hint of a smile. Nodding, he carefully released the shield and stepped back a pace, watching proudly as she turned back to the conversation.

"He says there're too many griffins held captive on human shields. That's why they attacked the village – no, 'attack' isn't right. They flew over, like they did with us, to warn the people not to raid the nest and steal the little ones for shields. They're nesting atop that large spire of rock." She pointed to where the female griffin sat.

Alanna's expression didn't soften. "How many villagers did they kill in this 'warning'? And Daine, you'd best not lie to protect them." Numair glared at his friend, but Daine didn't seem to have noticed the insult, focusing on the griffin.

"I couldn't lie if I wanted to, Lioness. He won't let us." She paused and sighed. "That's not right. Lies can't be _told _near a griffin. He's surprised we didn't know. That's why they were captured for shields."

That was fascinating. Numair filed it away carefully for consideration later; he didn't know much about heraldry. "There haven't been griffins here in centuries," he said quietly. "We've forgotten the lore. Does he know how long it's been since they were seen in human lands?"

She hesitated. "He – sorry, Numair – he doesn't know what you mean. I _think _he doesn't understand time as we use it. He _does _say they killed no one. The villagers screamed a lot, then they ran." Numair grinned at that; he could imagine it. And this was so surreal that it was funny. Daine continued, "They're at a great stone house about a day's ride down the coast."

Alanna finally relaxed a little. "Pirate's Swoop. That's easy enough to check. Is it true, about lying around them, Numair?"

"I'd heard it. You could try," he told her, deciding it was definitely someone else's turn to make themselves look stupid; so far today he hadn't embarrassed himself, and he'd like it to continue. To his amusement, Alanna struggled with it, gaping like a fish before smiling.

"I can't."

"How do they live?" The new voice was Thayet, coming to join the conversation. "What do they eat?"

"Fish," Daine answered promptly, more confident now. "Dolphins if they can get them, seals, sea lions – but mostly fish. He says there're big ones in the open ocean."

"No cattle? No sheep or pigs?"

"No, mum. They think grass-eaters taste nasty."

Thayet looked thoughtful. "Will he agree to let the villagers come back and not harass them?"

"Ouch!" Daine winced. "As long as they keep away from their nest, he doesn't care what people do." She smiled shakily. "Their voices – _our _voices – discomfort their ears. They don't want to come any closer to us than they must, to protect the little ones."

Alanna relaxed with a sigh, leaning on her saddle. "It'd be a shame to destroy such magnificence," she said admiringly. The griffin preened his chest feathers and sat straighter; Numair grinned as Thayet laughed.

"All right," the queen said. "I'll talk to the locals when we see them. Tell your friend we _will _fight them if they harm a human or any livestock."

Daine made a face. "He says don't insult him by calling me his friend. His kind has better things to do than associate with humans." She flushed. "He says at least my voice doesn't hurt his ears." Numair's grin broadened; he decided he liked griffins. They seemed to have a sense of humour.

The Lioness raised her sword and saluted the immortal. "Your point is taken, sir. Return to your nest, and we won't inflict our voices on you again."

* * *

Numair thought the encounter had gone very well, all things considered; as the trainees pitched camp, he sat with Daine, discussing how the griffin's mind had seemed to work. Most of it was apparently impossible to explain, but her attempts had him almost spellbound and he could have kept asking questions for hours. Their conversation was interrupted by the officers; one glance at his friends' collective expressions, and Numair knew they were in trouble.

"You shouldn't have turned our mounts against us." Thayet's voice was serious.

Daine swallowed. "I didn't – honest. They did it without me asking." Glancing around at their faces, she added, "If you don't believe me, maybe we could bring the griffins back – "

"No," Alanna replied firmly. "We just got the ponies calmed down."

"You had best study control, mistress," Thayet said sternly. "If we can't trust our mounts, we're in trouble."

Numair bristled at the slur to both his teaching and his student. "There's only so much she can do," he said defensively. "This is wild magic, Your Majesty – not the Gift. She can't help animals knowing her feelings any more than she can help breathing. I've tested her control. It's as good as she can make it. Wild magic is unpredictable – thus the name."

Onua joined in, putting her arm around Daine's shoulders in a welcome show of support. "It's got to be harder on her than on us, Majesty. She's a good girl." Numair nodded as Daine bit her lip and dropped her eyes, looking embarrassed.

Thayet sighed, giving up, and rubbed her neck. "I'll be so glad when we reach Pirate's Swoop," she said to nobody in particular. "A hot bath and a night's sleep in a bed, and I'll be a new woman." She smiled at Daine. "I'm not going to bite you, youngster. I'm not even angry, not really. I will say this – riding with you has been an eye-opener!"

"Welcome to the club," Numair muttered in heartfelt agreement, grinning as Daine glared at him.

"You know," Alanna remarked, "I have a feeling, if the people come back, this is going to be a very _honest _village from now on."

Onua grinned. "If so, a lot of husbands will be sleeping in the barn."

Listening to their laughter, Numair shook his head wryly. _I really need more male friends.

* * *

_

_Well, there you go. I've only got a couple more chapters of Wolf-Speaker to go, so I decided to update early. I'm going to attempt two updates a week now, for a while at least, but I can't promise how long that will last – especially as last night it dawned on me that what I have so far for Realms of the Gods will need a lot of rewriting. There's also a couple of plot bunnies starting to nibble at me... We shall see. In the meantime, please, keep reviewing._

_**Loten.**_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Edit April 2010: **FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to)._

* * *

_Fewer reviews this time, but nonetheless I'm very grateful. Please read the note at the end of the chapter; it's important. This chapter isn't much compared to some of the others; some of it isn't much more than filler, and it stops just before the battle begins, so it's not as long as I'd like. Sorry, but there's no other way. The real action starts next chapter, I promise.

* * *

_

Personally, Numair would have been perfectly happy to stay at Buzzard Rocks and watch griffins. Sadly, that wasn't an option; he had work to do now. Later that day his tower appeared on the horizon as the road bent away from the coast and looped inland; time for him to leave his student to her own devices for a while. He made her promise not to do anything stupid while he wasn't there, although he wasn't too confident about how long that would last, and promised in return that he would join her and the others at the Swoop soon, before turning his gelding and riding away.

It felt odd to be on his own again, after the past few weeks. Really, that didn't make sense; he'd spent most of the last few _years _working alone, after all. Still, that was the way he felt now; musing over that, he nudged Spots with his heels, the horse obediently breaking into a canter while the road still held. Closer to the tower, the road dwindled to little more than a track; Numair liked his privacy when he was here. His rooms in the palace were public enough; this was his home, his refuge more often than not.

He tried to remember when he was last here, and couldn't. It had to be at least six months. Numair rode in a slow circle around the base of his tower, staring upwards for any structural damage; the place had been virtually a ruin when he'd first claimed it and he'd been doing running repairs ever since, but it seemed sound enough. Unsaddling Spots, he rubbed the horse down and dug some feed out of his pack; there was a rudimentary stable attached to the tower now, but the grain stored there had long since gone bad. Dragging his packs inside, he headed upstairs.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent sorting through his possessions; he had a lot to do and not much time to do it. By evening, Numair had made notes on everything he'd been teaching Daine since he'd met her and what she'd discovered on her own; he'd also written down everything she'd told him about griffins that morning and copied out his notes on what he'd learned when spying on Lord Sinthya – that seemed a very long time ago now, but it had only been a couple of months at the most.

Sprawling in his favourite chair, he turned his attention to a report Myles of Olau had drawn up for the king on what was known about Stormwing origins, which wasn't much. Recognising a sentence as a quote, he frowned thoughtfully and went into his ever-growing library; somewhere here he knew he had a couple of books that dealt with immortals. As ever, once Numair started researching something seriously, the rest of the world passed him by; once it grew too dark to read, he lit candles and made himself something to eat before burying himself in his books once more, eventually going to bed long after midnight.

* * *

Morning found him at the very top of the tower, where he'd built an observation deck; from up here he could see the Swoop to the south and Buzzard Rocks to the north. He spent a few minutes gazing out to sea, letting the breeze wake him up a little, then turned his attention to the Stormwings; with the advantage of height, he might be able to see a few more of them and see if there was any discernible pattern. Were they watching a specific area of the coastline, or the whole stretch? He was hoping it was a specific area, since then it would be much easier to work out why.

They weren't there. Numair frowned and took another look; there wasn't so much as a glimpse of Stormwing magic to be seen anywhere. The hair stirred on the back of his neck; this couldn't be a good sign. He very much doubted that they'd simply got bored. Sighing, he took a brief trip down to the shore and endured the bitter cold of the sea once more, pushing his senses to their limit; the immortals were well and truly gone.

Back at the tower, he hastily packed anything he could think of that might be useful and saddled Spots once more, hauling himself into the saddle wearily; so much for a couple of days of rest and study. He needed to get to the Swoop and inform Thayet and Alanna; as he dug his heels into his horse's flanks, Numair spared a moment to be grateful that he was an advisor and not an officer. It was someone else's job to make the decisions.

He was both tired and sore by the time he arrived, but there wasn't time to worry about that. Luck was with him for once; he almost rode George down just inside the gates. There wasn't time to talk to his old friend, either, which was a shame; he and George had always got along well. Briefly Numair explained why he was here ahead of schedule; the baron cursed softly before nodding and going to find Thayet himself, freeing Numair to go and find Daine; maybe her magic would be more successful.

Pulling Spots to a halt outside one of the stables, he did his usual elegant job of dismounting, all but falling from the saddle as he raised his voice. "Daine? They said you were in here." She raced out, followed by Onua, both of them looking concerned as they took in the state of his horse; he handed the gelding's reins to Onua and turned to Daine without wasting breath on courtesies. "Come with me. We have to find the Stormwings."

She shaded her eyes and stared up at him. "What d'you mean? Aren't they behind their little clouds, being sneaky?"

Numair shook his head. "They're gone. Vanished."

* * *

Over the next week Numair got less than three hours' sleep a night. Throughout the day he was researching scrying spells and trying every variation he could think of, with no success, or debating endlessly with Thayet, George and Alanna. In the evenings he was with Daine, continuing her lessons. At night he attempted to find more information on immortals, reading until the small hours of the morning before exhaustion sent him to bed not long before dawn; a few hours later he'd get up and start again. It reminded him of his time at university, in the run-up to his final examinations.

He was in George's study with the Swoop's rulers when the messenger arrived from nearby Fief Mandash. Ogres had attacked the keep; the exhausted messenger wasn't clear on the details, but the lord and his heir had been killed and the rest of the family were trapped. It was actually a fairly routine affair in these strange times; something seemed off to Numair, but he was so tired and frustrated by this point that he couldn't figure out why and eventually chalked it up to his imagination. It wasn't a problem; she would only be gone a few days. Three ogres; the Champion could have dealt with it single-handed – with a squad of twenty men it would be a breeze.

The next two days following the Lioness' departure passed much as the preceding week had, with the exception that Numair was making more of an effort to actually sleep – with limited success, which was why he was back in George's study now, in the company of the baron, the queen and the captain of the guard. He had no experience in military matters and was contributing nothing to the conversation, but it passed the time. Staring pensively out of one of the windows, lost in his own thoughts, he looked around when the opening door was greeted with exclamations and frowned. By now he was past being startled by Daine's late-night appearances in the company of assorted animals, although bats was a new one.

"What's all this?" George asked.

Daine, with Sarge and Kalasin behind her, moved carefully into the room. "Please – don't startle them. They won't hurt anyone."

"It's only bats, Mama," the princess added; Numair tried not to smile. The two eldest royal children had joined forces with Alanna's oldest son and all three had attached themselves firmly to Daine with a single-minded devotion that was hilarious to watch.

"It's important, sir," Daine told George nervously. "I wouldn't have brought them if it wasn't." Her expression was wary; hardly surprising, since Thayet and Captain Josua were staring at her as if she'd grown an extra head. Numair walked closer, picking out about a dozen animals of several different species, wondering what could have brought all of them to Daine.

"May I?" he asked her, pointing to the closest bat – a hoary, as far as he could tell. She gently picked the animal off her shirt and handed it over. Numair held the bat carefully, examining it in silent fascination; he'd been right, it _was_ a hoary bat, a male. Looking up from the animal, he gave George a pointed look.

Taking the hint, the baron looked back at Daine. "What news have your friends brought for me?" he asked; she looked suspicious for a moment, clearly not sure if he was mocking her.

"Have you a map?"

Numair reluctantly tore his attention away from the bat in his hand to watch as she began placing pebbles on the map, explaining distractedly that she'd had an odd dream and woken to find her room full of bats, all afraid and eager to tell her about strange men in the woods. Carefully transferring the hoary bat to his shirt, Numair crossed the room to stand behind Daine and looked over her shoulder worriedly at the pattern beginning to emerge.

"All this since twilight," she finished. "We think it's more'n five hundred, all told."

Silently they stared down at the neat half-circle that cut Pirate's Swoop off from the rest of the country, leaving them isolated and surrounded.

* * *

The Swoop was well prepared for night attacks. A few quiet words from George was all it took; with help from Daine to get the livestock moving, the village was rapidly evacuated in good order and everyone brought inside the fortified keep. Numair stayed with his student as she rid herself of the bats and began talking to owls; they were on the Swoop's observation deck now, and he stood beside her, with George staring out into the dark while Daine sat quietly adding up numbers as her friends reported in.

"Lord Baron?" she said after a while, her voice worried. "I have the whole thing."

"So soon?"

"Owls are fast." Standing, she crossed to him; Numair looked over her shoulder as she showed George the total – more than six hundred. "The owls say they aren't moving. They're camped. No fires, but they're settled."

"Waitin' for dawn," George said sourly, nodding over the walls at whatever he'd been staring at earlier. "Waitin' for _that._"

Numair stared out to sea at the distant fog bank for a moment, then closed his eyes and let his senses drift, dimly aware of his Gift tingling along his skin as he reached towards the fog cautiously. It felt like sliding along a slab of marble, cold, hard and frictionless.

"Numair?" George's voice reached him from a distance. He shook his head and opened his eyes, worried.

"It's opaque. I can't even feel the weather-working spells that are holding it in place, and there _have_ to be spells. Fog is defined by natural law like any atmospheric creation. In the absence of those laws, we have to assume magic, which I _should _be able to detect. Since I _can't _detect it, that argues the presence of dampening spells in the fog." With an effort he stopped himself rambling; he was beginning to see the full plan now, and he didn't like it. They were in serious trouble. It was possible, just, that he might be able to handle the dampening spells, but it wouldn't be easy and it wasn't the only problem they faced.

"Dampenin' spells," George echoed. "We're boxed in, then – like rats in a trap. Whatever's in that fog will hit us in the mornin', sure as the Crooked God cheats. Why'd we have no idea this was comin'?"

Numair tried not to flinch. "George, there are more illusion spells and diffusion spells than there are stars," he said helplessly. "Scrying is an inexact magic; I have to know what to look for. All right, I'm good, but even I can be overwhelmed or outflanked. Alanna and Jon would tell you the same thing," he added, trying to keep the defensive note from his voice.

George put a hand on his shoulder; even the baron had to stretch a little to do so. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean you failed at your job. It's just been a long time since I've been sucker punched. I don't like it. They'll crush us, between what's out there and those six hundred at our backs."

"And the army won't come before we're bruised at least," he agreed morosely.

"Aye."

"How many warriors here?"

"Eighty – not countin' the Riders." George took a deep breath and looked at Daine. "What can your friends do to help?"

She swallowed, looking unhappy; Numair watched her silently. "Don't ask me to make them fight," she said softly, almost pleading. "They're not – this isn't _about _them. I can't ask them to fight and die for humans." Numair knew without her saying so that she was remembering the marsh, when birds had come to help her and been torn apart by Stormwings. "Please say you understand." He did, a little, but she hadn't been talking to him. They could discuss it later, if she wanted to talk about it.

George was silent for a few minutes, his eyes thoughtful; he glanced at Numair, who nodded. Finally he half-smiled and patted her arm. "I don't, entirely, but then I'm all too human. Will you ask them to watch, then? To let us know if more soldiers come, or if the ones out there start to move?" She nodded, thanking him in a whisper.

Drumming his fingers on the walltop, Numair thought furiously. "I might be able to reach Jon," he suggested after a while. "If anyone's close by, he can send in reinforcements. They might be in time."

"Can you reach Alanna?"

"Probably, but I'm not going to." Numair looked at his friend. "She's busy fighting ogres, George. I don't want to distract her. She'll come back to the Swoop as soon as she can; her knowing about this will only worry her, you know that."

After a moment the baron nodded grudgingly, and Numair dug a crystal out of his pocket, eyeing the approaching fog bank. He wouldn't have long, if he was going to get through to Corus. Concentrating, he sent power into the stone. "Jon?" A fire would have been easier, but there wasn't time.

The king's voice sounded distorted. "Numair? It's the middle of the night."

He grinned wryly. "Sorry to disturb you, Your Majesty," he said ironically. "We've run into some problems." Hastily he outlined the situation; they were besieged at the Swoop and had been surrounded overnight, Alanna was a long way off with a fifth of the guard, and dampening spells were approaching fast that would cancel every mage's Gift.

Jon didn't take the news well, but there wasn't time to waste on curses; dawn was streaking the sky. He had time to promise to try and send help, little more than that. As the sun rose above the horizon, the fog rolled in, and Numair abandoned the speaking spell as the dampeners crawled across his skin. Daine had gone to sleep; he envied her that, since he was starting to feel seriously worried now.

* * *

_I said this was important. Before anyone panics, no, I'm not going on hiatus. I wouldn't be so cruel. No, this time I'm appealing for help – not just my usual begging for reviews (although that's certainly there) but I need some ideas for a title for Wolf-Speaker. I have titles for Emperor Mage and Realms of the Gods, but I honestly can't think of anything for Wolf-Speaker, and there aren't many more chapters of this to go before we move on so I need a title._

_So, inspire me. What do you think sums up Numair's character in that book? Let me know in your review. Thank you all._

_**Loten.**_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Edit April 2010: **FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to)._

* * *

_Thank you all for that overwhelming response! Don't you people have lives? I kid, I kid, I love you all. Lots of good ideas there, as well. This chapter contains battles and dragons!

* * *

_

Nothing happened for hours. Doing nothing was Numair's least favourite activity in stressful circumstances; he was getting jittery, and the oily insidious feel of the dampening spells was setting him on edge even more. He might be a war-mage, but he'd never actually been in a war, or anything larger than a skirmish; battle on this scale was an unknown quantity that he wasn't prepared for. Around him, people were taking their positions and sorting themselves out with an attitude of quiet competence that was only making him feel worse.

"Are you all right?" The voice belonged to Daine. He looked down at her and forced a smile; about to lie reassuringly, he saw the expression in her eyes and stopped himself. She might only be thirteen, but she wasn't a child; more than that, she was his friend. _No, I'm not all right._

"I'm scared," he confessed softly. He wouldn't dare say so to anyone else; maybe not even Alanna. It would have been strange and awkward, admitting such a thing to the King's Champion and the most renowned warrior in the kingdom; he wasn't comfortable telling Daine, come to that. But he could see in her face that somehow she understood; she reached for his hand, and he squeezed her fingers gratefully. After a moment he began thinking aloud to her, hoping that it would help him make the decision.

"I hate to theorise without information, but I need a working plan. As it is, I either hold the spells off the Swoop so the others can function, or I leave the dampeners on them and punch through myself, to fight with what _I _have. The problem is that as a warrior-mage, my talents are limited, and I have no healing magic at all." Numair hadn't wanted this life. He didn't like killing, but with his level of power there was little else he could do. Shaking it off, he continued, "If Alanna were here, we could work off each other, but..."

"That's it, then," she said softly. "They lured the Lioness off and put an army between her and us just for that." He nodded. It worried him; whoever was behind this knew both him and Alanna well enough to have come up with this plan, and the list of people with that sort of knowledge was both short and alarming.

"Which means they've been watchin' us all along," George said behind them, making them both jump. "They know we've the queen here, and the next two in line for the throne."

"The Stormwings," Numair said at the same moment Daine did; the two looked at each other in dismay, the last pieces of the puzzle crashing into place. "_That's _why they were spying out the sea-coast," Numair continued bleakly. "They were waiting for us to arrive and get settled. I'll bet they also made sure none of our army or navy was close enough to help." His skin twitched as he automatically attempted to shake off the feeling of the dampening spells; every mage was uncomfortable now. Except Daine, oddly... He blinked. "Daine – your magic. How is it?"

She looked blank. "It's the same as ever. You told me, yourself, I couldn't turn it off."

"Wild magic," he breathed. "It's in everything. No matter how many dampeners they lay on us, _you'll _be able to function!" He wasn't sure yet why this was important, but there must be a way to use it. It was something their enemies had not calculated, something unexpected, and that might well make the difference in the long run.

"I can't send my friends to die," she said warningly. That hadn't been what he meant, not really, but before he could answer her expression changed. "Bows!" she called, reaching for her own. "Bows! Stormwing in the air!" George forced the children to take cover; they shouldn't be up here, really.

Numair felt something change in the air around them and swore, the vilest oath he knew. _It's starting. _"The wind's shifting," he said quietly. "They don't need the fog any more."

"The dampeners?" George asked hopefully.

He shook his head. "Still there. The fog laid them down. Now the spells will stick to all that the fog touched."

The full extent of the nightmare unfolded below them. In a strange way, Numair wasn't really surprised to see the familiar shapes of Carthaki war-barges and galleys; part of him had known this was coming ever since he'd learned what Sinthya had been up to.

"Such a big siege for such a little castle," Thayet murmured. "Where could they have sailed from?"

"Copper Isles," George guessed laconically. "They're Carthak's allies now."

"What are the big, flat ones?" Daine asked distractedly, searching the air for the Stormwing. Numair was saved from answering by Thayet, who began explaining how the war-barges worked.

"So this emperor has declared war?"

Onua answered this time, shaking her head. "No Carthaki flags. This isn't official."

Daine stared at her. "Surely that makes no difference. A flag's only a bit of cloth, after all."

"A war's not a war until an official declaration is made and the armies march under flags," Onua replied flatly. Numair agreed that it was a stupid affectation, but he said nothing, watching the now-visible Stormwing drop to land on one of the galleys. "None of those men or our friends in the woods are wearing uniforms, either," Onua added.

"And he can _do _that? It's not a war till this emperor fellow _says _it is?" Daine sounded thoroughly disgusted; Numair's lips twitched. Once this was all over, he would have to tell her more about Carthak and about Ozorne.

"Or until His Majesty does," he remarked absently, wondering what it would take for Jon to declare war. Would this be enough?

"We can't expect _any _help from our navy?" Onua asked; Numair already knew the answer and tuned out of the conversation, digging through his pockets until he found his spyglass and taking a closer look at the gathered fleet while George explained about Scanran raiders.

"Heads up, darlin's," the baron said as the Stormwing rose into view once more with a white flag in one claw. "I think we're about to hear terms."

Numair barely heard him. "This is not good," he said softly to them. "See the red robes at the bow of each ship? And there are at least four yellow robes per barge." He lowered the glass. "A scarlet robe from the university in Carthak means you have your mastery – the same level as the Mithran black-and-gold robe. University yellow robes are adepts. They brought the barges here, and their spells keep them afloat and working."

"What robe are you?" Daine asked curiously, watching the Stormwing approaching.

"None," he replied flippantly. "Ever put one of those things on? They're _hot._" She almost smiled, but looked to the others for an honest answer.

"He's a black robe," Onua provided. "There are only seven of them in the world." Numair didn't look round; he hadn't really wanted Daine to know that. Whenever someone learned how strong he was, they tended to pull away a little, even if they didn't realise they were doing it. Still, he'd have to worry about it later; the messenger was almost on them.

"Bows," Thayet said quietly; every archer raised their weapons.

The immortal smirked. "Now, is that nice?" A scroll dropped from one claw and landed between Thayet and George; the baron picked it up and began to read it aloud.

"To Queen Thayet of Tortall and Baron George Cooper of Pirate's Swoop, from the Lord of the Free Corsairs, Mahil Eddace, greetings. By virtue of superior numbers and armament, I claim the castle, village, point and waters of Pirate's Swoop for the League of Free Corsairs. Should you prove obdurate – "

"Obdurate?" Daine whispered, sounding confused.

"Stubborn," Numair translated softly.

"– I shall have no choice but to reduce the castle, enslave the survivors, kill all beasts, and sow its fields with salt. You have one chance only to avoid death, capture, or enslavement; surrender to me the person and effects of Thayet of Tortall and her children, Prince Roald and Princess Kalasin. You have what remains of this day and tonight to reflect. If the three persons named are not given over to us by such time as the dawn sun will clear the horizon, we will commence bombardment by catapult. If you wish to signify acceptance of these terms, you may do so by runnin' up three white pennants."

_I don't see how we could possibly refuse such a gracious offer, _Numair thought sourly as George calmly tore the scroll apart and tossed the pieces over the wall. He had never heard of the League of Free Corsairs or their self-styled lord, but the message came from Ozorne anyway.

"Looks like Ozorne decided what advantage he needs against the king," Onua muttered. _Royal hostages._

"There was a time when your folk were no one's errand boys," George told the Stormwing, who grinned nastily.

"We don't mind helping out. In a good cause, you understand. Hello, pink pig," the immortal added to Daine. Zhaneh Bitterclaws will be here to see you soon." He nodded at Onua. "_Both _of you." Numair blinked, processing this; that must be the name of the Stormwing they'd almost killed saving him. "Well?" the Stormwing asked. "Your answer?"

Politically it might have been a better idea to play for time and take the night to consider, buying time in case reinforcements were on the way. Realistically, Numair agreed wholeheartedly when George spat and replied, "Get out, before I let them make you into a pin cushion."

The Stormwing's laughter sent shivers down Numair's spine, confused memories of that nightmare chase stirring. "Oh, good. We _hoped _you'd say that." A moment later an osprey appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and attacked the immortal's face; Numair recognised one of Daine's patients and felt like cheering the bird on, but a flare of magic from one of the ships below drew his attention.

"Daine, call him off," he ordered quietly.

"I didn't call him on – " she protested.

He cut her off as gold fire began to spread above the galleys. "_Do _it!" For once, she obeyed; he wished he could memorise the tone he'd used, in case he needed it again. Dimly aware of Onua hustling the children away, Numair stared at the rippling gold square, his skin twitching as a haze of magic filled the air. There was something... _Oh, gods. _A moment later the gold fire exploded, and the shockwave shook the walls of the Swoop, sending everyone sprawling; the air ripped apart, a hole opening, and the sky was suddenly filled with Stormwings.

Lifting his head dizzily, Numair struggled for breath, staring wide-eyed at the approaching flock; some of the scrolls he'd been reading had mentioned the terror the immortals could inspire, but he hadn't realised before that the fear he dimly remembered feeling hadn't been drug-induced. Rolling, he scrambled to his feet next to Daine, already up and shooting; George struggled upright on his other side as people began barking orders and battle began in earnest.

Shoving away the Stormwing-inspired terror that threatened to cloud him, Numair hesitated for a second, biting his lip, then made his decision. This was going to be bloody; they would need healers. Backing away, he found a spot by the wall where he wouldn't be obstructing anybody and sat down, his back against the stone, taking a moment to get himself as comfortable as possible; this was going to be a very long day. Closing his eyes, he fell into the rhythms of meditation, calming his heartbeat and slowing his breathing, then reached out to feel the clinging fibres of the dampening spells filling the air. He concentrated; _there. Got it. _

The quality of the air changed, the almost greasy feel fading, and a subtle weight settled against his mind. It wasn't bad at the moment, almost effortless, but as time went on it was going to get very difficult. He opened his eyes again and watched half a dozen mages with minor Gifts start fighting in turn; it was frustrating to just sit here, since he knew that he could have sunk most of the fleet in the cove by himself, but there were going to be a lot of casualties and the healers needed to be able to function. Letting the noise wash over him, he listened for the officers' voices, vaguely aware of Onua drawing a protective circle around him, and focused on maintaining what he was doing.

* * *

Hours passed. What had been barely noticeable before was now starting to hurt; the quiet pressure against Numair's mind was increasing, giving him a pounding headache that wasn't being helped by the noise of battle raging around him. He'd stopped watching the fighting now, closing his eyes and focusing entirely on what he was doing; besides, watching was only upsetting him. These people were his friends, and they were being hurt. In addition, he was vaguely aware of Daine's struggle to stop her animal friends joining the fight; he should be able to help her, and he couldn't. It was heartbreaking to watch her continue firing with tears running down her cheeks as the attacking birds were killed.

By mid-afternoon he was past worrying about what was going on. Now he was in quite a lot of pain; nothing in his training had prepared him for such a sustained effort. Had he realised it was going to be this bad, he would have tried to destroy the dampening spells instead of just lifting them; he wasn't sure he had the power to try it now and he certainly didn't have the concentration.

A brief lull in the fighting was giving everyone else a chance to rest; he was dimly aware that Daine was sitting somewhere nearby, and people were making the rounds with water and food. Miri was saying something to her about sunburn; Numair mused vaguely that that was one advantage about being a southerner – it would take a far fiercer sun than Tortall ever got to cause him problems. He was starting to get dehydrated, though; he'd sweated through his shirt hours ago. Eventually Daine's voice reached him. "How's it going?"

She had been talking to Miri, but he answered anyway, his voice sounding hoarse. "Not bad. They can't breach the walls – can't even get near them. They're having a _horrible _time with the archers. We're holding our own."

"Can you drink or eat?" Kalasin asked him. "Maude says you should if it won't distract you from the spells."

_I'm surprised Maude hasn't tried to mother the Stormwings yet. _The woman was a menace. Numair nodded, speaking was too much of an effort at the moment, and leaned his head back against the wall once more, his eyes still closed. A moment later a cup was set against his lips, and he drank cautiously, the cold water making his headache worse. "How are you doing, Your Highness?"

"Please don't call me that," she said in a small voice. "It's 'cause of me being a princess that all this is happening. It's my fault and I hate it!"

_What? _Numair swallowed the last of the water and struggled to open his eyes, but Daine beat him to it. "Here, now – stop that," she told the girl gently. "You got it all wrong, sweetling. Those men would do this no matter who they're after. They could've asked for Numair, here, who's in trouble in that Carthak place – " _Oh, that's a comforting thought. Thank you, Daine. _"– or Sarge, that's a runaway slave. It isn't 'cause of you or Roald or anybody. You're just the excuse. If you must blame somebody, blame them Carthaks."

"Carthakis," Numair corrected, trying not to smile. _We really must work on your grammar, magelet. Even so, that was well said. _"Daine's right, Kalasin. The person who commits an action is the one responsible for it, not the people he commits the action upon." This was just one more to add to Ozorne's tally. Of course, the 'corsairs' hadn't asked for him, or for Sarge, because they weren't valuable enough as hostages; it still wasn't Kalasin's fault. He'd known the girl since she was a baby and didn't like hearing her so upset.

"But they _said _it was 'cause of Mama and Roald and me."

"So they would," Daine said angrily. "Evil people say evil things to make good people cry and doubt. Don't let them get that hold on you. It's because they're too cheap to buy food. They druther steal it if they can. That's _really _what it's about."

That wasn't strictly true, but Numair was in no state for a socio-political lecture right now, and it wasn't too far removed from the real motives anyway. Ozorne _would _prefer to steal rather than come to an agreement. The water had eased his headache a little, temporarily; he settled back against the wall once more as Kalasin was called away by Maude.

"But she's only a child," Daine murmured, confused.

"That child is a strong, natural healer," he replied tiredly. It was strange, that. The Conte line didn't generally run to healing magic. "She's partly untrained, still, but Maude can talk her through whatever has to be done." He thought about opening his eyes and decided it was too much effort; the sun was bright through the lids and it would hurt. "How are you managing?"

"What d'you mean?"

He almost smiled; he didn't need to see her face to picture her expression. "I mean your friends out there must be dying to go after the raiders, and I definitely recall you saying you won't let them fight. The birds got away from you this morning, didn't they?"

"I'm all right."

"Liar." Again he fought back a smile. _It'll be a long time before you can lie well enough to fool me, magelet. I've had a lot more practice. _"Is it a strain?"

"What?" He heard her stand up. "Numair, can you hear that?"

"Hear what?" He opened his eyes, wincing as the bright light stabbed him, and felt power wash through the air, neatly destroying Onua's protective circle. _What – _He scrambled up, losing his grip on the dampening spells when he saw what was coming towards them, and simply stared in stunned amazement.

_A dragon? _Numair blinked. If the griffins had been beautiful, the red dragon was something else entirely. He'd never imagined that dragons looked like this. Swaying where he stood, he was vaguely aware that Daine was trying to talk to the immortal, who didn't seem inclined to listen. "Stop!" she yelled. "Stop! What kidnappers? What lies?"

The dragon flew towards them again, and his exhausted mind finally stirred him to action; lifting a hand, he threw fire, gritting his teeth with the effort of pushing past the dampeners, and watched in dismay as it had absolutely no effect. He might as well have been flicking pebbles at the creature for all the impact it had. It seemed the Gift didn't work on dragons. That wasn't good. All he had done was attract the immortal's full attention; for a moment he stared into bright, catlike and furious eyes and wondered distantly how much it would hurt when those silver teeth tore his head off, before Daine slammed into him and sent them both sprawling.

Winded, he stared upwards at twenty feet or more of dragon and tried to simply breathe. This was... insane, frankly. Only a few weeks ago his biggest problem had been running out of books to read in the royal library, and now here he was lying between a dragon's forepaws and trying to think past the pain in his head as he got his breath back. _When did my life become so strange? _he asked himself and for a moment wanted to smile. _When I met Daine._

As if the thought had spurred her to action, she scrambled off him and stood up; Numair managed to push himself onto his elbows, but she was standing with her feet either side of his legs and he didn't have room to stand up even if he had the energy. Taking a breath as she stared up at the dragon, she reached out and placed both hands on the immortal's chest. _Is there anything you won't try to talk to? _

The dragon screeched, and for a moment it felt like the bones of his skull were going to separate. Daine's nose began to bleed, but he could tell by her expression that somehow in defiance of all common sense she was managing some kind of conversation. Well, there didn't seem any way this could get more surreal, and certainly there was nothing for him to do. If anyone could talk the dragon out of apparently wanting to kill them all, Daine could.

Numair watched the oddest conversation he had ever witnessed in his life taking place and shook his head wryly. Even Daine was going to find it difficult to top this. He just hoped that the last month wasn't going to set the pattern for the rest of their time together; he couldn't take much more of this sort of excitement. Finally something seemed to happen; the dragon screeched again as Daine let go and clapped her hands over her ears, then the immortal launched herself skywards. Numair's elbow slipped and he fell back, Daine staggering to one side as the dragon left as suddenly as it had arrived, vanishing in mid air. Whatever magic dragons used, he didn't recognise it.

With a determined effort, he staggered to his feet, swaying for a moment before finding his balance, and looked at his student. "You little idiot," he told her, pulling her into a rough hug. _I swear, you're going to kill me one of these days._

"She was in labour and on her way home," she explained in a somewhat breathless tone; he relaxed his hold a little as she hugged him back. "They opened the gate nearby, and it pulled her in. I think it killed her baby. Maybe it would've killed her – but it was just what you said, the wild magic was just sucked right out of me, so I think she's healing. And she's been educated, Numair, from books! Her mind – it's all organised, like you've been after _me _to do – "

In his exhausted state, this rambling explanation made perfect sense; it also sent his mind off at a tangent, and he might well have forgotten everything else for the sake of a long discussion about dragons had one of the trainees not appeared and called to him.

"Master Numair? The healers are asking if something's wrong. If you don't shield them now, we'll lose Sarge."

He took a breath and let go of Daine, attempting to smile at her before retreating to the wall and sitting down once more. Taking a moment to gather himself, he was vaguely aware that her nosebleed had stained his shirt, and he noticed as he closed his eyes that the others on the wall were looking at her as if they were afraid of her, which didn't make sense to him. It wasn't as if she'd summoned the dragon, after all. Making a mental note of it for later, he reached for his Gift once more and took the weight of the dampening spells again, bracing himself to endure.

* * *

_Well folks, here's another chapter for you, a nice long one this time. And I have some good news; this morning I finished Wolf-Speaker. Parts need rewriting still, but it's done. And thanks to some helpful prompts by my reviewers, I managed to come up with a title as well._

_There will either be two or three more chapters of this; I haven't quite decided how best to split it. As always, please review and let me know what you think._

_**Loten.**_


	10. Chapter 10

_**Edit April 2010: **FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to)._

* * *

_It's lovely to have so many people telling me how much they look forward to my updates, it really is. Thank you all so much. To show my appreciation, here, have some more battles, some more dragon action and a kraken.

* * *

_

Somehow he was still going by the time night fell, although he wasn't sure how. It wasn't even really pain any more; in some strange way it had gone past that. George roused him and he allowed himself to be led down into the Swoop to a room, for all the difference it would make to him since he couldn't go to sleep. Numair could barely see at this point, blackness flickering at the edges of his vision, and while he felt light headed the rest of his body seemed heavy and unresponsive. The door was shut behind him and he was left alone; at least it was quiet.

Time passed; he wasn't sure how much, since he couldn't really focus on the candle at the moment. Long enough that he had finished the jug of water left by the bed. Dehydration was starting to be a problem; he was still sweating a lot. Dimly he heard the door open; by the time he'd managed to open his eyes whoever it was had gone, but after a moment he heard footsteps and Daine appeared in the doorway with her own water jug.

"Thanks," he whispered hoarsely when she handed him a tankard, but he was trembling and nearly dropped it.

"Wait," she said softly, working an arm behind his shoulders and helping him half sit up. Too weak to argue, he leaned against her, grateful for the support. "You're still keeping those dampeners off?" That would have earned anyone else a sarcastic remark no matter how bad he felt, but as it was Daine he merely nodded, concentrating on drinking. The first gulps of water didn't seem to hit his stomach, soaking into his mouth and throat on the way down. Draining the tankard, he lay back with a gasp and gave her a grateful look.

"Can I get you some food?" she asked uncertainly. From the way she was looking at him, he deduced that he was looking every bit as bad as he felt.

"I'll just throw up," he replied honestly. Water was all he could cope with right now; even the thought of eating made him feel nauseous. After a moment he smiled crookedly. "How do you like your first siege?"

"That's very funny," she replied sourly. "I'm _so _glad you've hung on to your sense of humour. Only think how scared I'd be if you hadn't."

Numair grinned and closed his eyes once more. "That's my magelet," he murmured thickly, the weight of the dampeners pressing against him more tightly.

"Can't you let up awhile?"

He shook his head and regretted it instantly. "The healers. They're still going." Feeling better for having had a drink, he sought for something to distract him; it was difficult to think now, but he made the effort anyway. "Daine – this afternoon. You said the dragon can _think_? It's educated?"

"She," Daine corrected him, and he almost smiled. "_She's _educated. Even the griffins are like my animals, with all that's in their heads jumbled together higgledy-piggledy. Not her. She's read things in scrolls – I saw them in her mind."

"Amazing," he whispered, meaning it. "I'd heard stories – just never believed them."

"What stories?"

"They're mages. Well, we saw that. She came right up on us. Even you didn't hear her until she was close. And she vanished. Do you hear her now?" She'd brushed off his Gift as if it wasn't there, too. That hadn't happened for many years.

Daine's expression turned distant, the way it did when she was talking to animals; he wondered idly if she knew. "No, sir," she said at last. "But like you said – I didn't hear her until the last." To his amusement, she began fussing around him, taking his boots off and settling cushions behind his head, and he found himself fighting the urge to say something about women and the mothering instinct that would have earned him a slap from any of his older friends. He could tell something was bothering her, though, and held his tongue until she sat down beside him again.

"There's got to be something else I can try. I let the land animals go. They'll do some damage. There's not enough creatures on the ships to work with, though. It's mostly rats out there. I can't work with rats. I've tried, but they don't even want to listen to me."

Numair thought about it. "Whales?" he suggested at last. "Ask them to swim up under the barges – capsize them. The catapults are the biggest danger. Then the red robes on the galleys."

"If whales're out there, I can't hear 'em," Daine answered slowly. "They're not in range." After a moment she began chewing on a thumbnail; automatically he imitated his mother and knocked her hand away from her mouth. That was how he'd been broken of biting his nails when he was small. "I'm fair tired, too," she continued without seeming to notice. "The dragon sucked me almost dry." She reached towards her mouth once more; he grabbed her wrist. Giving him a look, she lowered her hand. "Pity I can't reach the sea. If there's a cold spot in the cellars – "

"Find George. He'll find a way to get you to the water."

"What if the mages on the ships catch me?"

He sighed, thinking about it. This was an unfair burden to put on a thirteen year old girl, and it wasn't fair to ask her to risk her life; unfortunately he couldn't think of anything else to try. With luck, she would be all right; she'd survived worse, after all. He was too tired to be afraid. "It's a risk, but you stand a better chance than anyone with the Gift," he said slowly. "Only a very few can detect wild magic. It's a skill mages in Carthak are discouraged from acquiring. Remember, _they _think it's an old wives' tale. If someone out there _could _sense it, he'd have a difficult time convincing the others." That was an understatement. He'd spent fruitless years arguing with most of the university about it; it had taken him a long time to realise that nobody believed him because they couldn't see it. "If you're detected, you can escape among the seals and sea lions," he added, before sighing again. "I know it's dangerous, and I hate to drive you this way, but – we need a miracle," he told her simply. "I'm hoping you can come up with one."

Numair wasn't particularly surprised when Daine nodded and stood up; she'd have done it even if he hadn't said anything. _She's as stubborn as I am, and far braver. _She looked down at him. "Wish me luck," she said casually, then to his surprise bent and kissed his cheek.

He hugged her. "Luck, magelet." _Be careful.

* * *

_

Dawn found him back on the walltop once more, although truthfully he wasn't sure how he was still conscious. The pressure was simply unbelievable and he'd nearly passed out just climbing the stairs to the deck. Daine wasn't back yet, either, which was a worry, but he couldn't feel much of anything right now except pain. Even so, he noticed the dragon – _let's be honest, she's difficult to miss – _and noted vaguely that the enemy mages had just as much success as he had in trying to use magic against her. Alarm calls rose from either side; shading his eyes, he squinted painfully, and saw copper fire. "Don't," he croaked, grabbing George's arm. "Daine's there." The baron barked an order, and everyone lowered their weapons as the girl and the dragon landed. The immortal didn't stay to socialise, vanishing after taking off the way she had the day before.

"Any luck?" George asked. Daine looked around; Numair raised a hand and waved when she saw him, trying to smile without much success.

"No," she said almost hopelessly; wincing, Numair closed his eyes for a moment. "The whales said no. There – there might be something, but – I don't know. I don't think it can be here in time. I'm sorry."

"You tried," Thayet said reassuringly. "You've done so much already." Numair nodded agreement; he was very proud of her. "I don't think the men from the camp outside the walls are fit to go into battle today, thanks to your friends," the queen added.

"The dragon?" George asked hopefully.

"I don't know," Daine replied. She sounded tired; then again, everyone did. "She's not very strong. I could try and call her back – "

"Well, well," a sneering voice interrupted; the female Stormwing who'd lost an eye to Daine when Numair had first met her. He didn't remember her name, and right now didn't much care, too busy calculating whether blasting the thing out of the sky would really make his skull implode or would just feel like it; he had a score to settle with this particular immortal. "All the little pigs tidy in one pen."

Daine looked around; Numair was glad he'd thought to bring her bow with him. He caught Thom's eye and the six year old began backing towards him with an innocent expression; _clever lad. _

"What's the answer, mortals?" the Stormwing continued, as Numair carefully slid the bow and quiver from his lap. "Will you surrender the three we want?" The boy's fingers closed around both bow and quiver and he began sidling back towards the group again, still looking innocent.

"We surrender nothing to you and your _handlers,_" Thayet replied. Numair knew that tone; ordinarily the queen was a lovely woman and all her subjects adored her, but let anyone even make a scathing comment about one of her children and she became a demon. "Tell them they've just bought my husband's enmity – and _mine._"

"You won't live long enough to care about enmity!" the Stormwing countered angrily as Thom passed Daine her weapon. The girl tried to get the bow into position, but she was obviously stiff and exhausted; the immortal laughed and moved out of reach. Daine swore; Numair recognised one of his own favourite oaths. _Oops. Note to self; watch your language. _

"Children, get below," Thayet snapped. Frowning, Numair looked over the wall and saw the barges getting into position. That wasn't good. _"Now!" _the queen ordered, in a voice that nobody in Tortall would dare argue with; they fled obediently for the stairs as the first two catapults fired. The boulders slammed into the cliff with enough force to send vibrations throughout the keep; Numair hastily abandoned his seat on the edge of the wall before he fell.

As the second pair of catapults fired, the air screamed with magic, and the dragon was suddenly there above them. Fire shot from her forepaws; Numair watched in fascination as dragon magic swept the flagship clear of its sails, before the gold dragon casually intercepted a boulder and dropped it on the barge that had fired it. Moving forward, he leaned on Daine's shoulder because it was that or collapse, trying to keep as much of his weight off her as possible. "Wasn't she red yesterday?" he asked for lack of anything else to say.

"They change colour," she replied absently, steadying him. "Numair, she's not big enough."

"Maybe she's big enough to stop them. And it's justice, my magelet," he added quietly. "They're the ones that brought her here in the first place." It was about time somebody in Carthak learned about consequences.

He watched silently with the others as the dragon, contemptuously ignoring all the mages' combined efforts to attack her, proceeded to incinerate one of the galleys before turning back to the catapults. Stormwings broke from the trees surrounding the Swoop and began to attack; he heard Daine sob once as their metal claws inflicted serious injury. "Can't you help?" she asked desperately.

"I wish I could," he replied sadly; it was taking everything he had left just to stay standing and hold off the dampeners. "Call her back this way, if you can. Our archers can swat the Stormwings away from her." He turned his attention to the remaining ships, trying to see what their response would be. The dragon seemed indifferent to her injuries, seizing one of the red-robed mages and dropping him into a cluster of Stormwings with an explosion that took him by surprise and brought a cheer from the walls. She intercepted another boulder, this time dropping it from high enough to sink the barge, but Numair didn't notice, his attention caught by a sickly gleam on one of the other barges that he recognised.

"Oh, gods," he whispered. "Call her in, Daine. Quick!"

"She won't listen. What's wrong?"

"They're loading the slings with liquid fire. Call her in _fast!_"

He felt Daine's magic scream across his senses; she was trembling as he leaned on her. "She won't come," she whispered frantically, trying again. The Stormwings were crowding the dragon now, forcing her back and down; the catapults fired. Liquid fire was terrible stuff. The balls of gelatinous chemicals ignited on impact as long as there was fresh air, and could not be extinguished with water.

The dragon burst into flames. Her scream was the most terrible sound Numair had ever heard in his life, and his eyes filled with tears as he watched the beautiful creature fall from the sky and crash through a barge into the ocean.

Daine's scream was nearly as terrible as the dragon's had been. "I'll kill them! Let 'em get near enough and I'll kill them!"

"Fall back," George ordered shakily as the final catapult fired once more. "Onua, Daine, Numair – let's go!"

Numair grasped Daine's shoulder gently to pull her away; movement out to sea caught his eye, and he stared, finding that he hadn't quite used up his emotions after all. After a moment he found his voice. "What dice did the Graveyard Hag roll?" he asked nobody in particular as more tentacles appeared to join the one he'd first seen. Total silence fell as the defenders stopped their retreat and stared.

He looked down at Daine. "Friend of yours?" he asked quietly. He was fairly sure this was a kraken; he hadn't realised those still existed either.

"Not exactly," she whispered, sounding extremely shaken. "I guess he moves faster than I thought." Another tentacle appeared and deftly flipped the last barge over. "Oh, dear – I think he's going to be nasty," she added, and he almost laughed.

"How big did you say it was?" George asked faintly.

"I didn't." There were a _lot _of tentacles now, methodically beginning to tear the fleet apart.

Suddenly the pressure against Numair's mind eased; for a moment the only thing he was aware of was relief from the pain. He pushed himself upright and straightened, blinking. "The dampening spells are breaking up."

"Listen!" Thayet yelled suddenly, startling everyone. She was at the other end of the deck, staring out over the woods. Horn calls rang out, and Numair grinned with the others, recognising the signals used by the King's Own. _I'll be damned. We've made it. _The others all bolted for the stairs; Daine stayed with him as he swayed, feeling as if a massive weight had been lifted from him. He felt dizzy and recognised the signs of a blackout; unable to fight it, his legs folded beneath him.

"I'm all used up," he told Daine thickly, trying to smile at her as he slumped to the deck, his eyes closing despite himself.

"Rest quick," she told him softly. "You and Lady Alanna are going to have to get rid of Himself, out there."

He lifted a hand vaguely in acknowledgement and let it fall, every muscle in his body going limp as he sank into blissful unconsciousness.

* * *

When Numair woke up, he was disorientated for a moment until he recognised the room he'd used before. Since he remembered passing out on the deck, he guessed that nobody had been able to wake him and spared a moment to pity whoever had had the job of carrying him down here. It was hardly surprising, he mused as he stretched; that had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done, by the time it ended. Sitting up carefully, he took stock; judging by the light filtering through the window, it was morning, although he had no idea what day it was. He didn't seem to be injured and didn't even feel sore any more, just a little tired, as well as being hungry and thirsty. There was a jug of water by the bed.

Pouring a glass and sipping slowly, he stood up gingerly and padded to the window, absently running his fingers over his jaw; judging by the stubble, he'd been unconscious for a couple of days. That was about what he'd expected. Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside, and he turned as the door opened and Alanna walked in.

"Awake at last?" she greeted him.

"Hello to you, too," he replied, smiling. "Finished chasing ogres, I take it?"

"I was with the Own when we showed up. You didn't think I was going to stay away, did you?"

"I suppose not," he acknowledged, taking another drink of water. "Sorry I missed your arrival. I expect it was quite dramatic."

"Not compared to some of the stories I've been hearing," she replied, raising an eyebrow at him. "Your student's already becoming something of a legend."

Numair grinned, well able to imagine some of the gossip no doubt flying around. "I'm not surprised. How is she taking it?"

"No idea. She passed out not long after you did, and she's still asleep. I've just been to check on her and I think she'll come out of it later today," she added before he had time to feel concerned; she knew him far too well, really.

"How long have I been asleep, anyway?"

"This is the third day, just about – it's just gone dawn. How do you feel?"

"Pretty good, considering. Maybe a little stiff, but I'll be fine once I'm up and moving."

"Was holding the dampeners so difficult?" she asked. "I would have thought that if you were strong enough to break through them in the first place, it would have been easy."

"It was, at first," he replied slowly, trying to think of a way to explain it. Inspiration struck, and he smiled. "I suppose it's like... imagine holding your sword out at arm's length. It doesn't weigh much and it's not difficult. But after a while, your arm starts aching a little. It's not a problem, but it's starting to get uncomfortable. Now imagine holding it like that for a few hours; by then it feels as if the sword is fifty times the size and made of lead instead of steel, and all you can think of is how much you want to let go. Then try it for two days."

Alanna considered this and nodded slowly. "I see. Nice analogy."

"Thanks."

"We still have a kraken out in the cove, by the way. He doesn't seem to be doing anything, but he's making everyone _very _nervous. Do you feel up to persuading him to relocate, or should we wait for Daine to wake up?"

Numair stretched and rolled his shoulders. "I doubt she'll be strong enough to get him to leave if he doesn't want to," he said reflectively. "If you let me wash and get something to eat first, I'll help you move him. Did I miss anything important?"

"Not really. None of the men on the ships survived; we took some prisoners in the woods, but nobody seems to know anything. Jon's sent word to Carthak, but the emperor hasn't replied yet."

He rolled his eyes. "He'll deny all knowledge and be filled with outrage that pirates dared use Carthaki-manufactured ships in such an enterprise. He may even use the word 'dastardly'."

"I know, but it's the game we have to play. Go and clean up; you smell like a horse."

"Thank you," he replied sarcastically, and grinned. "Don't let Daine hear you say that. It's probably an insult to the horse."

"I'll find us both some breakfast and see you outside."

* * *

"Numair, can krakens understand Common?"

"How should I know?"

"That is not what I wanted you to say. If it can't understand us, what do we do?"

He shrugged. "Calamari?" he suggested.

"What?"

"Oh, sorry. It's fried squid."

"That's disgusting. You're not being much help here."

"I didn't think kraken still existed until a few days ago, and as I've been mostly unconscious since then I fail to see why I'm supposed to know anything about them. I haven't had time to read up on the immortals we _know _are still around, never mind the ones that _might _be."

The two mages were standing in the harbour of Pirate's Swoop, staring out into the cove. They had the place to themselves; nobody was willing to go within a hundred feet of the ocean while the monster was there.

"Oddly enough, Alanna, they didn't teach us how to talk to kraken at university."

"What _did _you actually learn there?"

"Almost nothing, which I understand is traditional for a university education," he replied flippantly.

"I'm serious, Numair. If we can't talk to this thing, I don't see how we persuade it to go home."

"You could try mime," he suggested mildly, not feeling particularly helpful at the moment. He was tired, which always put him in an irritating mood, and Alanna generally brought out the worst in him.

"I don't know why I bother talking to you," she muttered. "Come on." They walked out along what remained of the jetty to the end and stood silently for a moment until the water began to boil just below the surface, tentacles moving under the waves. The kraken was definitely not as beautiful as the griffins or the dragon, Numair decided, and found himself trying not to laugh. _Daine does have the strangest friends._

Alanna elbowed him and gave him a pointed look; apparently he was supposed to start things off. Numair looked down at the water and let his senses expand. The kraken didn't possess magic as such, but it was definitely immortal, and ancient, older than the dragon. "Greetings, Old One," he called finally. The tentacles stilled; he got the impression that it was listening.

It appeared that the kraken _did _understand Common, although it didn't seem able to communicate. Hardly surprising; Numair wasn't even sure if the thing had a mouth, but he suspected that if it did, he didn't want to see it. This probably would have been easier with Daine to interpret. He took a breath, considering. "We thank you for your aid." No harm in being polite, after all, and he definitely didn't want to make it angry.

"We are grateful to you," Alanna agreed formally. "We wished to say so before you departed," she added meaningfully.

There was a silence before a single tentacle lifted clear of the surface, coiling back as though to strike and waiting. The two mages exchanged glances; it wasn't quite a threat, more a question. The kraken seemed to be asking what they thought they could do if it – he? She? _I don't suppose it matters, and I don't really want to know – _chose not to leave. Numair smiled grimly and reached for his Gift, letting the power flow across his skin, his aura flaring into visible light as he countered the kraken's threatening display with one of his own. His senses picked up the tingle of Alanna's magic as she imitated him.

The kraken evidently recognised the Gift; Numair had no idea what such a creature thought of magic, but the strength of the pair evidently gave the monster pause. The tentacle quivered for a moment, then very slowly lowered beneath the waves once more. _Maybe he just isn't hungry any more. _There was a long silence; when nothing moved across the cove, Alanna looked at him questioningly. He nodded and drew more deeply on his Gift, the air beginning to shimmer around him as the power built. Beside him, the Lioness did the same; she was nowhere near as strong as he was, but nonetheless it was an impressive display.

Apparently they weren't the only ones who thought so. Movement stirred beneath the waves, and the sea began to boil and churn, frothing white. Numair tensed, purple fire flickering at the edge of his vision as Alanna raised a hand, but after a moment they both realised that the disturbance was moving away from them as the kraken left.

The monster's hasty departure posed an interesting new problem. Alanna and Numair stared at the empty cove thoughtfully, allowing their gathered power to die away; where there had been a lot of tentacle-infested sea water, there was now a stretch of sand, a few pieces of wreckage and a couple of gasping stranded fish. "Well, I suppose that'll stop raids from the sea," Numair offered after a moment's thought.

"Shut up and give me a hand," the Lioness answered. "We need to draw the water back in before it affects anything too seriously."

"'We' is a bad idea," he replied quietly, sobering. When she looked at him, he shrugged. "I _can_ bring the sea back, as long as you don't object to a tidal wave obliterating half the village. Black robe, remember?"

His friend rolled her eyes at him. "You really need to work on your self control." Numair's lips twitched; he'd barely opened his mouth before Alanna cut him off. "Not one more word out of you. I know exactly what you're about to say; this is not the time or the place for your frankly juvenile sense of humour."

He gave her his best injured look, trying not to laugh. She ignored him, and a moment later he felt her Gift stream past him as the sea began to slowly rise and reclaim the cove once more.

* * *

_I absolutely adore writing dialogue between Numair and Alanna, for some reason. In my head they spark off each other wonderfully and make me giggle to myself while I write. The other three books all have more of it just because it's so much fun for me to write._

_You guys very nearly didn't get an update today. Our internet crashed in spectacular fashion and it's taken me three hours to fix it. Don't say I never do anything for you! After that, the very least you could do is review, eh? Thanks. There will only be one more chapter of this story before we move on; last chance to tell me what you think._

_**Loten.**_


	11. Chapter 11

_**Edit April 2010: **FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to)._

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_A few of my regulars seem to have disappeared. You're all still alive, I hope? This is the final chapter of this story.

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_

That afternoon found Numair in the stables. In theory he was keeping an eye on his still-unconscious student; in reality he simply didn't have anything else to do – except get on his friends' nerves until he'd been unceremoniously ordered to go away. Still a little shaky and tired from the exertions of the past week, he was quite enjoying the chance to do nothing for a while. All too soon they would have to head back to Corus and start trying to deal with any repercussions of this mess; right now it seemed a better idea to just sit and let his mind wander. Besides, Daine would be waking soon; she'd gone from the near-coma of the magically exhausted to a more natural sleep.

Half-dozing and thinking vaguely about dragons, it startled him when Daine stirred and started coughing. Reacting automatically, he picked up the canteen of water he'd brought with him and crouched by her cot, helping her sit up and holding it to her lips. "Drink!" he told her mock-sternly, amused to realise how this paralleled the earlier scene in his own room when she'd had to help him hold the water glass. Much as he had, she drained it before settling back.

"How long?" she asked him; he looked her over critically. She seemed all right, as far as he could tell.

"The rest of the day the kraken arrived, then yesterday and today." He handed over a honey cake; she ate it rapidly and accepted another before looking up at him.

"I have to go out."

"Don't be silly. You're weak. You're staying here."

"That's where you're wrong," she retorted, standing up and pretending not to feel dizzy; Numair calculated his chances of winning this argument and decided that while Daine wasn't going to listen to him, it wouldn't be difficult to make her stay put – if he was willing to use force, which he wasn't. Sighing, he stood and turned away to let her get dressed.

"My friends," she said suddenly, a new note to her voice. "The woods creatures – "

Well, if she was awake enough to worry about them, she was possibly awake enough to get up. Alanna was probably going to skin him for allowing it, though. "Some were killed," he admitted softly, keeping his voice gentle. "Once the enemy were driven off, we found the injured ones. They've been cared for. There weren't as many casualties as you'd think. You gave them the right advice," he added reassuringly, turning back in time to see her relax.

"Good."

He made a final attempt to persuade her to stay put. "You _need _to rest and eat. I'm still weak on my pins myself," he admitted.

Pulling on her boots, she ignored him completely. "There's something I have to take care of. _Now._"

Something in her tone caught at him and he hesitated. Whatever it was, it was important to her. Really, it came back to trust, and he'd trusted her this far. _All right, magelet, you win. Again. _"Then wait a moment," he told her, trying to appear as though he wasn't giving in but had decided of his own accord. "We need an armed escort. There may still be enemies out there. And let's get horses. Where are we going?" Until he'd said it he didn't realise he was inviting himself on this mad excursion, but it didn't occur to him to stay behind.

Daine closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. "Northwest," she said finally. "Along the cliff. We have to hurry," she added.

Numair had hoped for something slightly more specific than that, but he'd find out soon enough. He smiled and moved towards the door, knowing that Alanna would be nearby. "Then we'll hurry."

* * *

Outside the stable, he collared the first trainee in sight – Miri – and told her to help Daine saddle Cloud, before giving rapid instructions to the stable hands; as expected, Alanna wasn't pleased to hear that Daine insisted on going out so soon after waking up, but Numair emphatically refused all responsibility for this particular stupid idea. Within a short space of time a group of the Own had assembled and followed Daine out of the Swoop and along the cliffs, none of them with any real idea of what they were doing or why.

They trotted along the cliff-path for a while; Alanna and Daine were talking softly, leaving Numair with time to reflect that neither he nor his student should really be moving around this much yet. Still, his curiosity had been aroused, and even if he was half-dead he wouldn't have stayed behind now. Eventually Daine raised her hand, and they stopped; dismounting, she began walking cautiously towards the cliff edge, her head on one side as though listening.

Numair shrugged in response to Alanna's inquiring look and slid awkwardly out of the saddle to follow. "What are we looking for, exactly?" he asked. Turning to answer him, the ground gave way beneath her and he barely stopped himself falling after her; he was glad Alanna was there, since at the moment his control wasn't good enough to have seized Daine in time.

After a moment she asked shakily, "Can you set me down in there? I found it." He struggled not to laugh; _typical Daine. _

Alanna chuckled. "You have a unique way of finding things," she said dryly, lowering Daine into the hole. Now desperately curious, Numair moved to kneel gingerly at the edge and peered in, his eyes widening in surprise as he saw the occupant of the little cave. Every time he thought he was through being surprised by his student, she managed to prove him wrong.

Daine carefully picked up the baby dragon and stood, looking up at him and the others. "The dragon had a little one," she explained. "She's hungry."

* * *

Everyone might have been scared of the big dragon, but the small version drew fascinated attention, and by the time Daine had managed to feed the little creature she had quite an audience. Kalasin gingerly touched the sleeping dragonet's flank; along with everyone else, Numair had taken his own turn petting her, and agreed as the girl whispered, "She's so _soft. _What's her name?"

"Skysong," Daine replied promptly, then blinked and frowned as if she hadn't meant to say it, or hadn't known she was going to. "I guess her ma passed that on to me too, before she – died." Numair decided that Skysong was definitely a name the dragon would need to grow into; right now the tiny immortal didn't look anywhere near impressive enough for such a pretty name. Daine's voice broke into his reverie as she looked at Onua. "I don't think I can stay with the Riders past the summer. My duty's to this little one, now."

Thayet spoke quietly. "You can still make your home with us. That is, if you wish. I know my lord and I would prefer to have you in the palace."

To Numair's amusement, Daine looked bewildered. "_Me?_"

"You," the queen replied gravely, her eyes smiling as she reached for Daine's hand. "Veralidaine Sarrasri, you saved my life and the lives of my children. A home is the _very _least we can offer you."

She went absolutely scarlet, and Numair tried desperately not to laugh. It really had never occurred to her to see it like that, he knew.

"But we want her to live here," George objected. "Surely we're more suited as a home, bein' on the sea and near Master Numair and all." He grinned. "And bein's how our girl's made so many friends in our woods."

"I don't see why she can't live in my tower," Numair protested, belatedly realising that this was an important decision he should probably participate in. "She _is _my apprentice, after all."

"A girl's got to have females to talk to," Alanna told him tartly, her voice effectively dismissing him as a possibility, which he didn't think was particularly fair. "You haven't even gotten a new housekeeper since the last one interrupted one of your experiments."

_I never wanted one in the first place, that's why. _He held his tongue; Alanna had been the one to arrange the hiring of the woman, without consulting him. Thus far he was reasonably certain that she hadn't guessed he'd deliberately 'encouraged' the housekeeper to leave. He wasn't completely helpless and was quite capable of keeping most of the tower perfectly tidy and well maintained, with the exception of his study and library. And work room. And his bedroom. _All right, so maybe she has a point. I suppose I'm out of the running, then. _Caught between feeling sulky and amused, he sat back and watched his friends fighting over the right to shelter Daine.

"Come live in the palace," Roald begged.

His sister joined in. "We'll be good for ever and ever if you will."

The newly-named Skysong shifted in Daine's lap, apparently sneezing in her sleep, and Maude scowled at her charges. "Shh. You'll wake the baby."

"You don't have to decide right now," Onua pointed out. "I don't see why rearing Skysong should interfere with helping me this summer."

By this point Daine was looking more than a little overwhelmed, staring from face to face. Numair saw the expression in her eyes and understood, a little; he was fairly certain nobody but her family had ever really wanted her around before, and now everyone was fighting for the privilege of having her live with them. Finally she seemed to decide that it was all too much, starting to laugh. "It's fair funny," she explained breathlessly, proving him right. "I've gone from having no home to having too many!"

Everyone laughed, and Alanna put her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Welcome to Tortall."

Numair phrased it slightly differently, in the privacy of his own head, smiling at his student and friend. He knew what she was going through right now. He remembered feeling it himself – how long had it been now? Six years ago; he still felt it today, come to that. Being an exile, unable to return to where you had lived for most of your life, being in this strange place with these strange and wonderful people, and suddenly being offered a place to belong. _Welcome home._

**The End.

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**

_What can I say, I like happy endings!_

_Well, that's all, folks – for this story, at any rate. I want to say a huge thank you to all my readers. To those who took the time to review my work, especially. To the many others who added me to Story Alert or Author Alert, thank you as well – maybe next time you could drop me a review too, eh? And thank you to everyone who put Teacher on their Favourite Stories list, too._

_Seriously, so many of you have told me how much you look forward to my updates and how accurate you think my portrayal of Numair has been throughout this story. I never dreamed I would get a response like that, and I can't even begin to tell you what it means to me. You've all made me very happy; long may it continue._

_With that in mind, my next update will be a new story, as we begin Wolf-Speaker, in which Numair actually gets to do things by himself for a change. I sincerely hope I will see you all there._

_**Loten.**_


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